


Via Negationis

by anactoria



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Chuck Shurley is Not God, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fallen Angel Lucifer, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Manipulation, Rough Sex, Season/Series 11, There are no cinnamon rolls in Supernatural, Unhealthy Relationships, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:04:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7674814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoria/pseuds/anactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from partway through 11.14. Lucifer's dead. Sam knows that. He was there; he saw it happen. But now Amara's gone and the Devil is on his doorstep, bedraggled, mortal, and apparently willing to throw himself on the mercy of the Winchesters.</p><p>There has to be more to this than meets the eye. Sam can't help feeling that he's playing right into Lucifer's hands, whether he runs and hides or expresses his long-suppressed anger. As events unfold around them, though, he starts to wonder if either of them is really in control of this thing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read: For the sake of spoilers, this fic is tagged **Choose Not to Warn**. It is _not_ tagged **No Archive Warnings Apply**. If you'd like to know whether the fic contains a particular thing, you are more than welcome to ask me about it in the comments below, or drop me a line on [LJ](http://anactoria.livejournal.com) or [Tumblr](http://anactorya.tumblr.com).
> 
> Sam does not behave wisely or well in this fic. Yes, he's being manipulated, but if morally dubious protagonists aren't your thing, you may want to sit this one out. No cinnamon rolls, reliable narrators, or healthy attitudes to... well, anything to be found here.
> 
> This diverges from canon partway through 11.14. If you've ever been subjected to my rantings on the subject, a) I'M SORRY, and b) you'll already know that I love S5 Lucifer, and hate the later versions with a passion... so, naturally, I decided to write a S11 fic. DX As such, the characterisation probably occupies an uneasy middle ground. I'm okay with that.
> 
> ...Aaaand, now I can get onto the pleasant part! This is my fic for this year's [SPN/J2 Big Bang](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com). This was my second year taking part, and thanks to Wendy for making it happen. I was lucky enough to be picked up by [Amberdreams](http://archiveofourown.org/users/amberdreams), and you can find her wonderfully creepy artwork [here](http://amberdreams.livejournal.com/426327.html)!
> 
> Thanks go to [frozen_delight](http://archiveofourown.org/users/frozen_delight/) for her beta help and encouragement, and putting up with all my angsty flailing. You're the best. <33

 

 

It’s the second knock at the door that turns Sam’s world upside down.

 

\----

 

The first one wakes him up mid-morning. He starts out of a doze, momentarily baffled by the noise and the fact that the time display on his cell reads a quarter past nine. Then he remembers he switched off his alarm and decided to forgo his usual run when he woke with his heart pounding at four AM and spent the next hour tossing uncomfortably, unable to settle.

The dreams are getting less frequent, but Sam still has them more nights than not.

Sometimes, they’re of the day he said _yes_ to Lucifer for the second time. Always the same moment. Sam sits back in his chair, his brief hope of getting Dean back from World War II extinguished, and explains that they can’t use the spell without an archangel. And Cas’s expression changes. Or, well, Lucifer stops pretending to be Cas.

He puts his head on one side and says, “Well, Sam. You’ve landed us in a real dilemma here,” words at odds with his tone of cool satisfaction, and there’s a beat and then Sam just _knows_.

Lucifer raises his hand and brushes Cas’s wet hair off of his forehead, and Sam sees what he wasn’t looking for earlier. Tiny burn marks at his hairline, like the ones that appeared on his old vessel toward the end.

“You see,” Lucifer goes on, conversational, “Cassie here is gonna give up the ghost sooner or later, and it’s starting to look like sooner, don’t you think? So here’s the thing. I _could_ zap back to 1943 and rescue Dean, but I’m gonna need you to do me a favor in return.”

Sam grips the edge of the table to steady himself. “You need the Hand of God just as much as we do,” he says, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “You have to go back.”

Lucifer shrugs, his unconcern sitting wrong on Cas’s shoulders. “There are others out there,” he says. “Brothers, on the other hand? Not so interchangeable.”

Maybe he’s bluffing, but he doesn’t look like it. Sam knows he should stand firm. But that sub is going down and Dean’s still on it, and who knows if Cas is even still alive in there?

Lucifer’s watching him patiently, like he’s a foregone conclusion. His expression even softens a little. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, Sam, but you haven’t left me with much choice.”

And now Sam doesn’t have a choice, either. He grits his teeth.

“Yes,” tastes bitter in his mouth. Then there’s a blaze of white light, and that’s all he knows.

Those dreams suck. They leave Sam with a pounding headache, and the ghostly feeling of having just swallowed the contents of an ashtray.

Last night, though, he had the other dream: the one where he comes back to himself feeling like he’s being broiled alive, light streaming out through his eyes and his mouth. Then his knees hit the ground and he’s himself again, for the first time in he-doesn’t-know-how-long. He’s still clutching an inert chunk of wood in his right hand.

He lets go, and it clatters to the floor at the feet of the woman standing in front of him.

Dread tightens in Sam’s gut, and he lifts his eyes, but Amara isn’t looking at him. Her gaze is raised to the heavens, her expression rapt, a glimmer of blue-white light fading in her eyes. It’s like she’s in a trance.

“Sam!” Dean’s shout drags him out of his reverie and he stumbles to his feet, backing up. Dean grabs his arm and tows him away from Amara. Cas is a step behind Dean, brow furrowed in his old familiar frown, but he doesn’t move to take Sam’s other arm. Later, it will occur to Sam to be grateful.

Right now, all he can get out is, “What happened?”

Dean pauses a second. “I think… it looked like—she ate him.”

“Lucifer,” Cas clarifies, like it wasn’t obvious, earning a glare from Dean. “Amara consumed his grace.”

Sam just feels dizzy. Lucifer’s dead. It should be a relief, a weight years old off his shoulders, but he doesn’t have time to feel it. There are black clouds gathering above their heads, and all they can do is run.

Those dreams suck, too. It always takes Sam a couple minutes to clear the shreds of terror from his mind, to remember that it’s all done now, it’s over, the world didn’t end and Amara’s just as dead as Lucifer. Sometimes, when he wakes in the middle of the night, it takes him hours to get back to sleep. In the dark, it’s hard to see the line between dream and reality, past and present.

Last night was one of those nights. Sam kind of feels like he only just got back to sleep, and for a moment, he considers pulling the covers up over his head and ignoring the door. But they don’t exactly get many visitors, and Cas has a key and no understanding that it’s polite to knock, so he jams his feet into his boots and his gun into the back of his sweatpants and heads for the map room.

He gets there just in time to hear Dean say, “Uh, thanks,” and close the door behind him.

“Dean?”

“Well, this is weird.” Dean’s footsteps tromp down the stairs. He’s holding a cardboard box with a UPS sticker on it.

Sam blinks at it. They don’t exactly get much in the way of mail, either. “What’s that?”

Dean shrugs and holds out the box. “You tell me. It’s for you.”

The weight of it surprises Sam, and it takes him a moment to figure out why. It’s a big enough box, but it feels heavy in a way that isn’t entirely material. The tablets felt a little like that. Holding it, Sam gets the same sense of something huge and intangible pressing down on him that he felt around Amara, around the archangels.

He swallows and pushes the thought from his head.

“Sammy?” Dean cocks his head. “You gonna share with the class?”

“No idea. Let’s take a look.” Sam sets the box down on the table, and maybe pulls his hands back to his sides a little too fast, because Dean gives him a concerned look from the corner of his eye.

Sam meets his eyes, that weird pressure clearing away. Now he isn’t holding the package anymore, there’s nothing weird about it. Just a cardboard box that’s a little heavy.

It’s just taking him a little while to get used to normality. That’s all. The world was ending again a couple weeks ago, and with the dreams still playing on his mind—well, it’s no surprise that everything out of the ordinary ends up looking kinda suspicious.

He inhales deeply. “You got a knife?”

Dean nods and produces one from somewhere, offers it handle first.

Sam takes it, but pauses before he slits the packing tape, frowning down at the address label. It’s handwritten, which is unusual enough—but more than that, the handwriting seems kind of familiar. Old-fashioned, swirly handwriting, like you expect old people to have. Like you see in the Men of Letters files.

Maybe that’s all it is. That style just seems familiar because he’s gotten used to seeing it on old casefiles. It isn’t as though you see much handwriting elsewhere, these days.

Gingerly, he slides the tip of the knife through the tape and opens the box.

“So?” Dean grins, coming up behind him to peer over his shoulder. “What’s in the box? What’s in the—oh.”

“Oh,” Sam agrees. It’s another box.

He grits his teeth before he lifts it out, but the strange weight it had before doesn’t manifest itself. It’s just a wooden box, locked with some tiny, fiddly mechanism, the lid jammed on so tightly you can barely see the join. Carved all over with symbols, every protective rune and sigil Sam knows, and a few that he doesn’t.

Dean whistles lowly. “Don’t suppose there’s a key?”

Sam peers into the cardboard box, even runs his hand along the bottom, just in case. “Nope.”

“Awesome.” Dean crosses his arms and glares at the box like it’s personally insulted him.

Sam shrugs, feels along the top and the sides of the box, prodding at the little locking mechanism with a fingertip. Nothing gives. There’s no latch, no secret panel that opens like magic under his hands.

But with the amount of protection on this thing, he guesses there must be a good reason for that.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to open it,” he offers. “Maybe whoever sent it to us—”

“You,” Dean points out.

Sam frowns. “Maybe whoever sent it to me didn’t include the key for a reason. Maybe that’s on the other side of the planet somewhere because whatever’s in here shouldn’t be let out.”

“Huh. You think another hunter sent it?”

“Could be. I mean, this is about the safest place you could put a cursed object or—whatever’s in here. And who else knows about it? I mean, if it was Cas, he would’ve called, right?”

He doesn’t miss the troubled look that passes over Dean’s face, just for a second, before he nods and says, “Yeah. Yeah, he would’ve.”

Things still aren’t right between them, Dean and Cas. And Sam gets it, he does. What Cas did, that level of screw-up—it takes time to get past. It’s just that Sam understands too well to hold the grudge, and Dean understands too well to do anything else.

Sam takes a step back from the box and turns to face his brother. “You should give him a call,” he says. “See if he can help us read the warding. He might recognize some of these symbols. I’ll text Eileen, maybe give Jody a call, see if either of them knows anything about it.”

For a moment, Dean’s very still, not meeting his eyes. Then he nods and pulls out his cell phone, disappearing into the hallway for a little privacy that Sam can’t really begrudge him.

 

 

\----

 

Neither Eileen nor Jody knows anything about the box, but Jody takes the opportunity to pressgang him into giving Alex some advice on her college application essays—not that the process these days necessarily bears any resemblance to how it was when Sam sent his own in—and he finds himself smiling at her enthusiasm. It’s infectious, and drowns out the faint pang he feels at hearing her talk about what she’s gonna study, the shy pride in her voice. That could’ve been him, once, except that he never had anybody to talk to about it all.

By the time he gets off the phone, Dean has reappeared, shaking his head. “Cas doesn’t know anything about it,” he says. “But he’s gonna come take a look.”

Sam nods. “Good,” he says. “That’s good, right?”

Dean’s face goes through a complicated series of expressions. The one he finally settles on doesn’t look _un_ happy, at least, and so Sam figures the conversation can’t have gone too badly. “Yeah,” Dean says. He pauses. “Man, I need more coffee.” He disappears into the kitchen.

He doesn’t re-emerge until lunchtime, but Sam hears the clatter of pans from the kitchen, the radio playing just loud enough that he gets the bassline and not the lyrics, a muddy echo down the corridor. This is the third time Dean’s given the kitchen a thorough clean this week, but Sam knows better than to give him crap about it. There are worse coping mechanisms.

Instead, he seats himself at the table and turns his attention back to the box. He doesn’t actually try to pick the lock, mindful of his own warnings, but he Googles locking mechanisms, takes photographs of the runes carved into the box and runs them through the database he’s built up from the Men of Letters’ files, just in case there’s a match.

It doesn’t get him anywhere, and he’s grateful for the distraction when the front door opens, letting in daylight and a squinting Cas. He hovers at the top of the stairs for a moment, like he isn’t quite sure of his welcome here anymore.

Sam lifts his hand in greeting and makes his best attempt at a reassuring smile. “Hey, Cas. Glad you came.”

That gets him a smile, small but genuine, as Cas makes his way down the stairs. “Thank you, Sam.”

When he gets to the bottom, he just stands there, hands hanging awkwardly at his sides. That stiffness would’ve looked alien, once, but it’s reassuring now that Sam can read the relief in it—and, more importantly, the fact that it’s all Cas. He closes the laptop and gets to his feet, rolling the ache out of his shoulders.

Cas moves toward the table, brows drawing together in puzzlement as his gaze lands on the box. “This is the artefact Dean called me about?”

“Uh, yeah. You recognize it?”

Cas shakes his head—which, yeah, okay, that was probably too much to hope for. But he looks like he’s about to speak again, and that’s when Dean appears in the doorway.

“Grub’s up,” he announces, then gives Cas this painfully awkward nod and adds, “You made it.” He’s balancing three plates, though. Sam takes that as a good sign.

“I did,” Cas says, solemn as if he’s swearing on the Bible. Or something more accurate than that. He accepts the plate Dean thrusts into his hands, looks at it for a moment, then sets it down on the table and takes a seat.

Dean stuffs a bite of sandwich in his mouth and tries so hard not to look at Cas that Sam gets the urge to kick him under the table. Instead, he clears his throat and nods at the box. “So. Any ideas?”

Cas pulls the box toward him and narrows his eyes, tracing over the carvings with his fingers just like Sam did earlier. Dean’s watching him, now that Cas can’t see him looking. Cas’s lips move like he’s sounding something out, and after a moment, he raises his head.

“It’s a hybrid spell,” he says. “Mostly Enochian, but there’s some Old Norse in there, too. A little Gaelic. Whoever created it must have designed it themselves. And they must have possessed no little magical skill.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “You think it could’ve been one of the Men of Letters? Somebody who survived ’58?”

Another Magnus, like Cuthbert Sinclair? The thought doesn’t fill Sam with joy.

“It’s possible.” Cas inclines his head.

“Or it coulda been one of those Grand Coven witches, right?” Dean goes on, frowning. “Rowena’s pals. Ugh, witches.” He makes a face and actually puts down his sandwich for a moment.

Yeah, neither of those options is exactly reassuring—but they’ll worry about that later. Sam turns to face Cas, who’s holding half his sandwich between his thumb and forefinger and not eating it, food apparently forgotten as he studies the box.

Sam nudges him with his foot under the table. If Cas wants to set things straight with Dean, well, refusing to eat his food is one surefire way to screw it up.

Out loud, Sam says, “Can you see what the spell’s designed to do? I mean, it looks like it must be for protection, but it can’t hurt to make sure.”

Cas seems to get the hint, because he shoves a bite in his mouth and chews solemnly for a moment before he answers. “It’s more than that,” he says. “It isn’t just a protective spell—there are binding runes there, too. Whoever did this may have wanted to protect what’s in the box, but it looks like they were also concerned with protecting you from it.”

Dean snorts. “You’d think they coulda sent a note. You know—‘creepy cursed shit inside, do not open’? I dunno about you guys, but I’d be happy to take that at face value.”

Sam can’t help rolling his eyes. “C’mon, Dean,” he says. “Nobody sucks at reading the warning labels more than us. When do we ever leave well alone?”

He only realizes it was the wrong thing to say when Dean bites off whatever retort he was gonna come out with, eyes widening minutely, and Cas drops his eyes. Sam glances between the two of them, suddenly feeling as though he’s unwittingly sat down in the middle of a minefield.

“You know what?” he says, getting to his feet. “I’m gonna take a look in the storerooms. See if any of the curse boxes that were here when we moved in have anything like this on them. You never know, right?” He does his best to force cheerfulness into his voice, and doesn’t wait for agreement before he turns to leave the room, though he thinks he hears Dean grunt something behind him.

Whatever it was, it’s cut off by Cas’s soft, broken-voiced “Dean,” and a silence so thick Sam finds himself holding his breath for fear it might stick in his lungs.

He feels easier once he’s away from the map room, and he gets down to looking through the curse boxes in the storeroom, slow and methodical.

Maybe he should be pissed that it’s turned into a Dean-and-Cas thing—what Cas did, springing Lucifer from the Cage. It was Sam who died to put him back there, Sam who might have died again when Amara swallowed his grace, if Dean and Cas had shown a couple minutes later.

Sam forces the thought away, makes himself concentrate on the shelf in front of him. The Darkness and the Devil are gone, and Sam’s safe at home, all human and in full control of his faculties. And maybe he should be pissed that Dean can’t forgive Cas when he has, but he gets it. It’s a hell of a lot harder to excuse the crap people pull to save their loved ones when you’re the one they did it for. Dean’s trust will never come quite easy enough, just like Sam’s own might always come too easy.

He hasn’t prayed since—

No. Not dwelling on it. He’ll give them time, and he’ll hope that Dean will come around to things being okay again on his own.

He gives Dean and Cas a half-hour to talk. Would give them longer, only then there’s another knock at the door.

It’s loud enough he hears it down in the storeroom, and so he figures somebody nearer the front door will get it, and doesn’t get up until he hears it again.

This time, Sam unfolds himself from the floor, makes sure the curse box he’s inspecting is safe in its place on the shelf, and heads for the map room. He hears voices in the kitchen as he passes—too low to eavesdrop, but at least they’re talking—and he lets himself feel a little more hopeful about the whole thing.

The box is still on the table, and Sam wonders if this has something to do with it. Two deliveries in one day? Maybe this is their key—or their ‘stay out’ note. He’s still frowning to himself, thinking that maybe the answer to their dilemma is something as simple as a mail mix-up, only one package getting delivered when there should’ve been two, when he slides the bolt aside and opens the door.

His heart freezes in his chest.

Sam gropes for his gun; opens his mouth to yell for Dean, for Cas, as though either of them has a hope in hell of helping him now.

From the doorway, Lucifer grins at him. It’s his old face; the one from the Apocalypse, from the Cage.

“Honey, I’m home,” he says, and then his face goes slack and he crumples to the floor at Sam’s feet.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam backs up, stunned into silence. His back hits the railing and he freezes there, heart thudding in his chest, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Lucifer isn’t moving, but that doesn’t mean anything. Sam sucks in air, clutching at the bars behind him to hold himself upright. Breathes in. Breathes out.

That’s about all he does, for a couple seconds at least. He can’t make himself do any of the sensible things—can’t run, can’t crouch to check whether Lucifer really is out for the count or just screwing with him, can’t even think straight. He breathes. Steadies himself on the railing until he’s pretty sure his knees won’t give out under him. 

He catches himself reaching for his right hand with his left, an old impulse, feeling for a scar that’s faded almost to nothing in the intervening years. Sam runs his thumb over it anyway, but Lucifer stays right where he is, a motionless lump on the floor. The front door’s still hanging open, creaking on its hinges in the breeze, the smell of wet grass drifting in from the outdoors. Sam makes himself concentrate on those little things; the grounding, familiar details. He takes in everything around him. The old furniture of the war room; the carved box still sitting on the table; the faint sounds of Dean’s and Cas’s voices down the hallway.

 _This_ is real. He’s here. Home. Not back in the Cage, and not locked away inside his head while Lucifer runs around wearing his face.

He swallows, and finally finds his voice.

“Dean!” he yells. “Cas! Get up here, we got a problem.” 

There’s a beat, and then the sound of something being dropped in the kitchen. Footsteps echo down the corridor, and Dean barrels into the war room and up the stairs, fumbling for his gun, Cas hot on his heels.

Dean clatters to a halt the second he reaches the top. His eyes go wide, but he doesn’t miss a beat as he trains his gun on the figure on the floor. Cas is slower to react, peering over Dean’s shoulder with eyes narrowed in puzzlement, like he isn’t a hundred percent sure what he’s seeing.

“What the hell?” Dean gets out. “How—no. No way. He’s dead. We fucking saw it. He’s dead.”

“Yeah.” Sam says, his voice a little shaky. “That’s what I thought.”

Not just thought: _knew_. Because he was there, was the conduit for it. He felt Lucifer’s grace sucked out of him into the Darkness. He still sees it, still feels it in his dreams. They’re supposed to be just dreams, now. It was supposed to be over, and now the Devil’s at his door again.

Cas moves forward, ducks around Dean and crouches over the body on the floor, still frowning to himself. Sam’s breath catches in his throat, and he bursts out, “Cas, wait.”

“For what?” Cas squints up at him.

For a hand to shoot out and grab Cas by the throat and burn him up from the inside; for an archangel blade to pierce him through the chest. For Sam and Dean to be next.

Nothing happens. Cas just crouches over the still body on the floor a moment longer, then sits back on his heels, looks up at them in bewilderment, and announces, “This is not an angel.”

Dean stares. “Then who—wait, is this the poor bastard whose ass he was riding before Sammy? But that dude was toast, he had to be. He was all—” He breaks off, gesturing at his face.

Cas shakes his head. “I said this wasn’t an angel,” he says. “I didn’t say it wasn’t Lucifer.”

“So, what? This is like when Metatron stole your grace? Like Anna?”

“It’s possible.” Cas raises his hand. He hesitates for a second before he presses his palm to the forehead of the body on the floor. It doesn’t react. 

Maybe it’s a bad sign that Sam’s already twisted around to thinking of the body as _it_ , that he can’t look at its face, even though he knows exactly who this is. He can’t come up with any other way to think straight about what’s happening here, though, so he holds himself upright as best he can and closes his eyes.

“There’s a human soul in here,” Cas says, then, softly. “It’s—new.”

Sam hears Dean breathe out, hard. The click of a safety going off. “That mean we can kill him?”

“I expect so.”

“We should find out why he’s here.” Sam doesn’t realize he’s thinking it until he hears his own voice. When he opens his eyes, Dean’s staring at him in straight-up disbelief. Gun’s still trained on the body—on Lucifer, though.

“Seriously, Sammy? Satan shows up on our doorstep and you wanna chat? Not, oh, I dunno, _shoot him in the face?_ ”

There’s more worry than anger in it—and yeah, okay, Sam probably doesn’t look like a poster boy for rational decision-making right now. He holds up a hand, and discovers that his legs have decided to work again and he can stay upright without holding onto the railing.

“Look, I get it. I am with you on the shooting-him-in-the-face plan. Seriously.” He looks Dean in the eyes, and after a second, Dean ducks his head, has the grace to look a little sheepish. “Just—afterwards. Because if—if he’s human right now, he can’t hurt us. But if he’s _here_ —well, that can’t mean anything good.”

He’s turning it over in his head already. Lucifer’s human, and he showed up here, on the doorstep of the last people he screwed over before he died. Either that’s suicidally insane, or there are things going on here they don’t know about yet. Either Lucifer wants something from them because he has a bigger plan here, or something even more powerful than Lucifer dumped him on the doorstep. Neither of those possibilities is good, but they’d be crazy to face them without trying to get some information first.

A muscle tightens in Dean’s jaw, an unhappy shadow crossing his eyes. Cas, still crouched at Lucifer’s head, eyes Sam dubiously. But after a couple seconds, Dean raises his eyes to the heavens and mutters, “Our lives _suck_ ,” and Sam knows he’s won the standoff.

He hangs back while Dean and Cas drag Lucifer down to the dungeon. Dean grimaces and pokes gingerly at his shoulder, like just touching him might sear the skin from his palms. Nothing happens, of course, and finally Dean takes a deep breath and says, “Okay, let’s show our new roommate the facilities.” 

Sam stays where he is until he hears the dungeon doors clang shut. He finally lets himself breathe out, then, a long, trembling exhale.

Dean reappears just as he reaches the bottom of the steps. He watches Sam’s face carefully, inclines his head back in the direction of the dungeon. “Cas is gonna watch him for a while,” he says. “Let us know if he wakes up.”

Sam nods. He pulls out a chair and sits down. Dean watches him for a second, then retrieves a bottle of bourbon and two glasses out of the cupboard and follows suit.

He doesn’t pour right away, just sits biting his lip, running his thumb and forefinger around the rim of one of the tumblers. 

Sam waits as long as he can stand to, but eventually, “What?” breaks out of him and breaks Dean out of his trance.

No answer—not right away. Dean just pours two generous slugs of booze and slides one of the glasses across the table, around the wooden box. Takes another breath before he says, “You okay?”

An involuntary snort breaks out of Sam. “Not even close.”

For some reason, Dean’s frown lessens a little at that. He takes a sip of his whiskey, and after a moment, Sam shrugs and knocks back his own. Drinking to stop thinking is mostly Dean’s thing, and he tries to avoid it himself, when he can—but if ever there were special circumstances, these are them. The Devil’s in the dungeon. It’s difficult even to get his head around it, to reconcile the inert body Dean and Cas dragged downstairs with the creature of light and fury that once filled up Sam’s head like a supernova.

“Look,” Dean goes on, then, breaking in on his thoughts. “You’re right, okay? Whatever the hell’s going on here, we gotta know about it. I ain’t saying we don’t get all the intel we can. But we can’t trust what he says. You know that, right?”

Once, that would’ve given Sam reason to be pissed. Like he might be naïve, or weak, or tainted enough that he needs to be told, _Don’t believe the Devil_. Even recently, the whole Cain and Abel thing—Dean swallowing Cain’s story wholesale, taking the word of a demon because they’d had a fight. That could unleash a whole damn tidal wave of bitterness, if Sam let it.

But Dean’s eyes are tired and a little distant, and Sam knows he isn’t the weak one in Dean’s mind right now. If Dean’s thinking of anything, it’s Amara, and _I’ll give you peace_ , and his own hands weaponless and trembling. Dean was the last person locked up downstairs, after all. He’d wanted to go to her, at the end.

So Sam just pours himself another drink, and says, “Yeah, I know. Take Satan with a grain of salt. Who’d have thought it, right?”

Somehow, that makes Dean laugh, and somehow, that eases a little of the tightness in Sam’s chest. Lets him breathe easier, like their situation is any less fucked-up than it was ten minutes ago.

He reaches for the box and pulls it over to him, drawing a line under the conversation. For now, anyway.

“Think I’ll do a little more digging on this. Maybe I’ll take it down to the storerooms with me.”

Yeah, okay, he’s still running away. But Dean only watches him for a couple seconds before he nods and says, “Yeah. Me and Cas will—you know.” He gives a vague wave of his hand that presumably indicates, _stand guard over the Devil_.

Apparently Sam isn’t being included in the rotation—or consulted about it. Maybe some other time, some other monster, he’d take offense at that, but right now he can’t bring himself to feel anything but relief.

 

\----

 

Not that he actually gets much work done. He goes through the motions of checking the shelves, inspecting the patterns on other curse boxes and in books of protective spells, but he isn’t totally sure he’d notice if Dean had decided to replace the pages of every grimoire in the bunker with _Playboy_ centerfolds. Trying to keep his thoughts from circling back to it is hopeless.

Lucifer’s here. In his home. This time, it isn’t even a trick. Sam knowingly let him in. Sam told Dean not to shoot him on the spot.

It was the sensible thing to do. Sam can’t help feeling like there’s more to it than that, though, no matter how many times he rationalizes it to himself. Lucifer showed up human. That in itself is so totally unnatural, weirder than any monster Sam’s ever faced. It makes him feel like something has shifted in the foundations of his world, or maybe himself; like the solid ground beneath his feet is no longer to be trusted.

If he has to look the Devil in the eye, he thinks it might crumble away altogether.

There’s a tap at the storeroom door, startling him away from the book he isn’t reading. He realizes his knees are starting to ache, with the way he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Cas is standing in the entrance, hands hanging awkwardly at his sides, face grim.

Instinct has Sam on his feet before he can even ask the question. Apparently, Cas doesn’t need to hear it anyway. He just nods and says, “He’s awake,” with all the gravel and doom of a horror-movie voiceover.

Sam swallows hard. “He say what he’s doing here?”

Cas’s unhappy look intensifies—if that’s possible—and oh, crap, Sam knows what’s coming next. “He says he’ll only talk to you.”

Forget it, all that stuff about looking the Devil in the eye. Sam can’t do it. Just those few words, just the knowledge that a few rooms away, Lucifer is awake and waiting for him—that’s all it takes. Sam does the only thing he can.

He shakes his head, shoulders his way past Cas and out into the corridor with a mumbled sorry. Cas stands back to let him pass with mute understanding. 

Sam runs.

 

\----

 

He takes one of the old cars from the Men of Letters’ garage. ( _Too conspicuous_ , the sensible part of his brain warns him, _anyone could track you down_ , but he doesn’t have space inside his head to worry about any of the usual hunter stuff right now.) He drives until his spine stops prickling like he’s being watched. It might be hours. He can’t be sure, but by the time the feeling subsides, the roads have turned unfamiliar—at least, as unfamiliar as they ever get—and the pale afternoon sky is darkening, turning orange near the horizon.

Sam doesn’t pay attention to the name of the motel where he stops, or even the name of the town it’s in. He pays cash at the desk. The clerk gives him a worried once-over, and he realizes that yeah, he probably doesn’t look the picture of legit right now. No bags, and he won’t kid himself that the fear—or the anger, or the confusion, or whatever it is that has him running from home like a startled animal—isn’t showing on his face. He must look like he’s on the lam, or maybe just seriously unstable, and he can’t honestly say there wouldn’t be a grain of truth in the latter right now.

The clerk doesn’t say anything, though, and Sam slips her an extra twenty out of gratitude. He actually remembers to ask her for the wi-fi password, which he guesses is something to thank research autopilot for. 

Once he’s safely ensconced in the motel room, door locked and curtains closed, he pulls out his cell. Now he’s stopped running, he realizes he’s woefully underequipped. No weapons in the trunk of the car he borrowed, no salt or holy water, not even his laptop. 

Those things might actually be an issue, if he was running from any of the regular kinds of monster. But he isn’t hunting anything, and the thing he’s afraid of isn’t hunting him. Being without them just makes him feel kind of naked.

He sits on the bed and thumbs through his missed calls. Seven, all from Dean. Two voicemails. Sam deletes them without listening and taps out a text instead.

_Sorry._  
_Had to get out of there._  
_I’m okay._

No sooner has he set his phone down on the nightstand than it vibrates with a reply.

 _Be safe_ is all it says. Sam lets out a breath. Not exactly relief, but as close as he’s gonna get right now.

 

\----

 

He switches on the TV and flips restlessly through the channels. Pauses on the news station, just on the off-chance that something with the hallmarks of a case might show up and give him an excuse to keep running and a direction in which to go. Nothing does, so he keeps flipping. Infomercials, cookery show, car show, something with superheroes and exploding buildings. He gives up there, switches the sound to mute but leaves the movie playing, Robert Downey Jr swooping through the New York sky to snatch the warhead and save the day while Sam presses the heels of his hands over his eyes and tries not to think about how he’s left his brother and his best friend at home to babysit the Devil.

It isn’t fair on them. Sam knows that. Not when it’s down to him. Whatever angle he comes at it from, Lucifer showed up on their doorstep because of him. It’s always been because of him.

He should go back.

He should, but he can’t think about it yet, not without wanting to run out to the car and keep driving until he hits the ocean—and then jump in and swim. 

Instead, he scrolls through the contacts in his phone until he pulls up Eileen’s number. Not Jody, or any of the other dozen hunters they know. Maybe because Eileen wasn’t around six years ago, doesn’t know him as anything but one of the guys who helped her take out the banshee. Or maybe it’s because she won’t call him, won’t hear the tremor in his voice when he talks.

 _Don’t suppose you know of any hunts near_ —he pauses, has to grab the motel room key and look at the fob— _Monmouth?_

His phone chimes with an answer maybe five minutes later. _Nothing right now, but I can put the word out. You and Dean in the area?_

_Just me. Dean’s keeping an eye on something._

_Mysterious._

_Yeah. It’s--_ He pauses, deletes. _Believe me, you don’t want to know. Could use a distraction._

 _I don’t want to know about it or you don’t want to talk about it?_ A second later, there’s another chime. _Ignore that if it’s none of my business._

 _It’s OK_ , Sam texts back, and he finds that it is. Maybe because Eileen wasn’t around during the Apocalypse. She doesn’t know him as the guy who let out the Devil or the psychic freak whom other hunters were never really sure was an ally and not a target. Plus, she’s so straightforward it seems a whole lot easier to just respond in kind. _Somebody showed up at the bunker today. Someone from my past. Or something, I should say._

Eileen gets straight to the point: _I thought you killed yours._

Your origin story; the monster that got you into the life. Sam laughs hollowly in the empty room.

_I’ve got more than one._

_Well_ , she texts back, after a short pause. _That sucks._

_Yeah. It really does._

Nothing for a couple minutes, and then, _Doesn’t look like there’s anything in the area right now. But if your brother has the other thing handled, you could head up to MI? Guy I know up there thinks he’s got a wendigo and you’ve hunted those before, right?_

Sam sighs. Eileen may not be a close friend, but she’s a good one, and she’s offering him a few days escape, assuming that Dean has the Lucifer situation under control. That’s the whole problem, though, isn’t it? There might not be any handling the situation—not any handling Dean can manage, anyway. He tries not to picture the scene back at the bunker, tries not to imagine what Lucifer might be saying to his brother, but there’s no getting away from it. Worst-case scenarios echo around the inside of his skull. The chances are, Dean will end up handling the situation with a bullet to the head. Cas probably won’t stop him.

And they still need to know what the hell Lucifer’s game is.

He sighs and reaches for his cell again. _I should probably head back. Tell your friend to call me if he needs any advice._

_You sure about that?_

_In the morning._

_K. Take care, Sam._

_You too._

 

\----

 

He allows himself to stay the night. Sleep doesn’t come easily—and when it arrives, it’s fitful, populated by the same images he’s been fighting off since that first showdown with Amara. Lucifer looking at him with Cas’s eyes and a bunch of fake sympathy. Light and death.

Sam’s back on the road by dawn, his stomach having rebelled at the thought of breakfast. He stops to pick up coffee after he’s been driving a couple hours, less because he needs the caffeine than because of the nausea that digs itself deeper into his guts as the miles tick down toward Lebanon. 

He could turn around. Go find Eileen’s contact and help out with his wendigo problem. Or drive east until he hits the ocean, south to Mexico. He could pick up the phone and tell Dean, _I was wrong, we don’t need to know, kill him dead_. He wouldn’t have to say it twice.

He doesn’t. He keeps driving, and too soon he’s pulling up at the entrance to the bunker, his untouched coffee gone cold at his elbow.

The door opens before Sam gets to it. Dean sticks his head out into the mid-morning sun, dark circles under his eyes that tell Sam he didn’t exactly get eight hours uninterrupted shut-eye, either.

Cas must be keeping guard again. Sam tries not to feel bad about that. Human or not, having the Devil in the dungeon means you put the guy who can smite him dead on guard. Plus, this time, Cas is the reason Lucifer’s running around topside; he can’t exactly complain about being landed with babysitting detail. Sam can’t help it, though. He knows how it must feel. _Funhouse mirror_ didn’t begin to cover it when it was Gadreel looking back at him from someone else’s face, and Gadreel hadn’t been perfecting his ability to screw with people’s heads since the dawn of time. Sam wouldn’t wish this on anybody.

“You sleep in a ditch or something?” Dean asks him. “You look like h—hammered crap.” Which might just be the Dean-est version of the kid gloves treatment he’s ever been subject to.

“Got a motel,” Sam says. “Though I dunno if there was much of a difference.” He rolls his shoulders and gives an exaggerated wince.

Dean’s attempt at a smile is pretty good, all things considered. “’S why I never let you choose the accommodations.”

Sam returns it, cautious. “I talked to Eileen,” he offers.

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Uh, I mean, I texted Eileen. Asked her if she knew of any jobs I could pick up.”

“No luck, huh?”

Sam ducks his head. “Yeah, actually.”

Dean watches his face for a long moment. “You know I’m not gonna be pissed at you if you wanna stay away, right? I mean, I get it.”

“I know, Dean.” Sam manages a smile, though he can tell from Dean’s dubious expression how weak it is. “I know.” 

“So.” Dean scrubs a hand down his face. “I guess that means we’re officially… trying to get sense out of Satan?”

“I guess it does.” Sam pauses. “I mean, we need to find out what his game is. We can’t just—hang around waiting for me to be okay with this. That isn’t how this stuff works.”

“No, it ain’t.” Dean’s shoulders slump, just for a moment. Then he raises a finger. “For the record,” he says, “on the list of all the dumb ideas you’ve ever had, this is at least somewhere in the middle.”

Sam lets out a breath that doesn’t quite become a laugh. “Duly noted.”

“You at least want some breakfast first?”

The idea isn’t totally unappealing, what with that untouched cup of joe gone cold in the car, the caffeine-deprivation headache starting up behind his eyes and the rumble in his stomach somewhere beneath the nausea. Plus the fact that it would give a few more minutes’ grace before he has to face what’s waiting in the dungeon. 

Sam shakes his head. “Later. Let’s get this over with.”

 

\----

 

Dean sticks with him all the way to the dungeon, one pace behind and a little to the side, like a bodyguard. Any other time, that would annoy the crap out of him.

The doors to the dungeon slide open as they approach. Cas must’ve been listening out for their footsteps. He lets himself out and closes the doors again, exchanging a glance with Dean that tells Sam they’ve already talked about this, and apparently they’re back on the same page now that they both have him to worry about. Cas turns a concerned frown on him. 

“You’re sure about this?” he asks.

It’s like they’re tag-teaming him in the hope he’ll give up if they just ask enough times. Honestly, the thought is tempting, but Sam screws up his courage. The longer he lets this hang over him, the worse it’s gonna be.

“No,” he admits. “I’m not sure. But I’m still doing it.”

“You don’t have to,” Cas says, carefully. “You do understand that?”

“I know.” Sam sighs. “Look—I know this can’t have been a picnic for you, either.”

“Sam—”

He raises a hand, cutting Cas off. “So I get it. Why you’re worried. I do. But we need to know what’s going on here.” He manages a faint smile. “And you guys are gonna be right outside the door anyway, aren’t you?”

“Like hell we’re going anywhere,” Dean says, and Cas gives a grave nod. 

Sam squares his shoulders and opens the door.

It’s dark in the dungeon. He has to blink a few times to get used to the gloom, and before his eyes adjust, he realizes that somebody’s humming.

The tune sounds like ‘Amazing Grace’.

A prickle of remembered unease runs down his spine. The tune itself has no place in his memories. The Lucifer that haunted his waking hours after Hell picked songs and snippets of movie dialog out of the air seemingly at random. Sam never knew what he was gonna get, but there’s a sameness to the memories anyway. Sleepless nights spent trying desperately to convince himself his world was real, heart pounding, eyes dry and gritty with wakefulness. He finds himself clenching his fists for the relief of fingernails digging into his palms.

Sam grits his teeth, narrows his eyes on the figure sitting handcuffed to the table. Takes a step forward. Another.

The humming stops.

And Lucifer looks up at him, his face mild and open in the half-light. “Sam,” he says, like he’s greeting a long-lost friend. “I knew you’d come around.”

Sam comes to an involuntary halt a couple paces back from the table. Lucifer sits with his hands bound in front of him, palms up, inviting. He isn’t exactly smiling, but his face wears the same placid expression it did the very first time they met—or the first time he showed up in one of Sam’s dreams, anyway. Back when he was so certain he’d get what he wanted out of Sam, he just had to sit back and wait for it to happen.

It’s a struggle for Sam to hold his gaze; not to turn on his heel and flee.

“You said you wanted to talk to me,” he gets out, voice tight. “So talk.”

Lucifer spreads his hands, expansive gesture stopped short by the handcuffs. “Ask me anything.”

“Let’s start with why you’re here.” Sam pauses. “No, wait. Let’s start with _how the hell are you alive?_ ”

“I wish I knew.”

Sam crosses his arms. Lucifer just keeps looking up at him, with the wide eyes and the rueful almost-smile.

“I was there,” Sam says. “I saw—I felt it. Amara consumed you. You were just—gone. How do you come back from that?”

“Well, I didn’t expect to.” Lucifer raises an eyebrow. “I was there too, remember? And then I wasn’t, and trust me, I thought that was it, too. Goodnight Vienna, that’s all she wrote. Then I woke up.” He shrugs, all innocence.

Sam looks away. “When?”

“Well, I haven’t exactly been keeping count—the whole sleeping thing is confusing, you know?—but I think it’s been a couple weeks. Could be wrong.”

The Devil sleeps. That’s a difficult idea to get his head around, too—though, now that it occurs to him, Sam notices the camp cot set up in the corner of the dungeon, the ring on the wall beside it that’s just about the right height to attach a pair of handcuffs. There are a pair of unfamiliar pajamas folded up at the bottom of the cot. Dean must have gone out and bought some, rather than let Lucifer borrow his own clothes or Sam’s.

Lucifer’s been a thing that haunts his dreams so long, lying in wait behind Sam’s eyelids. The idea of him having to close his eyes and take his own chances with what dreams may come—yeah, that’s a dispatch straight from Bizarroland.

Sam shakes his head to clear it of the notion. Focus. “A couple of weeks. That sounds like when—”

“When you took down the Darkness. Which—gotta congratulate you on that one, Sammy. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you were up to it.” Lucifer does smile at him, then—fond, like they’re friends sharing a joke. “You always were full of surprises.”

Sam frowns at him. “How did you know about that?”

“I’ve heard whispers. Nobody knows how you did it, though. You gotta share, Sam. I can’t wait to hear the deets.”

“Whispers from who?”

“Relax. No demon grapevine.” For a second, Lucifer looks like he might be about to laugh, but then his expression turns serious. “Really not in any hurry to advertise my current predicament to the minions. You’ve met Crowley; you know what demons are like.”

Sam snorts. “Well. You made them.”

There’s no retort, just another shrug.

“That’s why you’re here?” Sam goes on. “Hiding from your own hellspawn? How did you know we wouldn’t call Crowley and hand you over? Hell, what makes you think we won’t do it now?”

“I didn’t. I don’t.” Lucifer shakes his head, then, very slightly. “But I’m not hiding. I’m not here for the Fortress of Wow-This-Is-Worse-Than-Solitude. It’s just—where else would I go, Sam? It isn’t as though I know any other humans.”

“What, no worshippers willing to take you in and do your bidding?” 

“Sam.” Lucifer gives him a reproachful look. He ignores it as best he can.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” he points out. “You’re not seriously telling me you have no idea how you’re alive?”

“Well, you guys made Auntie go boom. Maybe everything—everyone—she’d eaten went back to its rightful place.”

Sam shakes his head. “We checked up on some of the people whose souls she took. No changes in their behavior.”

“Huh.” Lucifer puts his head on one side. “That’s interesting.” And he looks like he means it, curiosity sparking behind those pale eyes. “Guess she burned through the human fuel first.”

Not human curiosity, Sam reminds himself. Those pale eyes are stolen from some poor bastard Sam never met, even if the creature wearing them does claim to be a man now. He sure as hell isn’t thinking like one.

“But if your grace is gone too, shouldn’t you just be dead? Not—” He waves a hand.

Lucifer grimaces, so briefly he almost misses it. The first hint he’s seen of anything but placid serenity. “One of you.”

“Well, yeah.”

A shrug, and Lucifer raises his eyes. “Maybe someone up there loves me,” he suggests.

Sam crosses his arms. “Seriously?”

“Or not. Dad always did have a sick sense of humor. I mean, have you ever seen a platypus?”

“‘Dad’?” Sam stares. “You don’t seriously think—” He can’t actually bring himself to say it. The idea’s too ridiculous, or too blasphemous, or maybe just too damn unfair. The idea that God might show up to the party for _this_ , after the Darkness, after the Apocalypse; that it’s caprice and not indifference. The universe where that’s true is too cruel.

But Lucifer has that innocent look back on his face. _Don’t ask me._ “He brought back Castiel a few times, didn’t he? And no offense to the little guy, but he was hardly on Dad’s radar way back when. At least I actually knew the guy.” He pauses, lowers his eyes for a split second. “Maybe a little too well.”

This doesn’t mean anything, Sam reminds himself. All he has to go on here are Lucifer’s words, and Lucifer gave up on truth-telling years ago. He makes himself ignore the _what-if_ , the twist of doubt in his guts.

“I’m not saying I believe you,” he says. “But if God really did bring you back—why come here? What do you expect us to do with you?”

“I don’t know yet.” Lucifer looks up at him, thoughtful, eyes going wide like the idea has just occurred to him this minute. “Are you going to hurt me?” There’s no fear in it, just the cool curiosity of a creature that thinks itself above pain.

For the first time since Lucifer showed up here, Sam feels something that isn’t fear or confusion. A small spark of anger, bright as a flint struck in subterranean darkness.

“I don’t know yet,” he says, because it’s the only answer that doesn’t feel like an admission of defeat.

Lucifer smiles at him anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hello, Sam.”

The sound of Cas’s voice makes Sam start a little. He’s been holed up in the map room since this morning and that singularly ineffective conversation with Lucifer. Ineffective at anything except making him want to crawl out of his skin, anyway. 

Maybe it was dumb to think Lucifer was gonna give him any information, but he was expecting _something_. Some kind of catharsis. A fight, maybe. Taunts that he could respond to, a lecture that he could call out for obvious bullshit. Not that clear-eyed calm; not the same gentleness with which Lucifer first insinuated himself into Sam’s dreams, all those years ago. And definitely not the apparent willingness to accept whatever the hell Sam decides to do with him.

Lucifer’s playing them. Has to be. Sam just doesn’t know what the game is, and he can’t figure it out. The thread won’t come loose no matter how much he worries at it. So he’s sitting up here, as far from the dungeon as he can get without leaving the bunker, as though putting distance and concrete walls between himself and the Devil will somehow insulate him from his fears.

He sighs, looks up and meets Cas’s eyes. “Dean send you?” he asks.

The two of them seem easier with each other today. Maybe they got around to talking their shit through while Sam was hiding out in his motel room, or maybe they didn’t talk about anything, and they’ve just jointly decided to get over it in the face of a bigger problem.

“Sam.” Cas pulls out a chair and sits opposite him, reproachful eyes fixed on his face. There’s a heaviness about him, familiar in that seen-it-in-the-mirror-too-often way, and okay, maybe Dean didn’t need to send him.

“Sorry.” Sam scrubs a hand over his face. “Just, uh—you know.” He waves a hand in the vague direction of the dungeon, and Cas nods solemnly.

“I know,” he says, and for a moment Sam thinks that’s all he’s getting. Cas stares down at the tabletop, brows knitted, lost in thought. Then he looks up. “We could… find somewhere else,” he suggests, then.

Sam frowns. “You mean, we could put Lucifer somewhere else?”

Cas nods. “We could use the brewery where you kept Rowena. Or it’s possible there are other Men of Letters strongholds in the country.” He pauses briefly. “We could even contact Crowley. There are secure areas in Hell, and now he’s back in command, he’ll welcome the chance to be sure Lucifer is… contained.”

Not that Sam’s ever been on board with asking favors from Crowley—and a bitter little part of him wonders if it was Dean’s idea—but it makes sense. It’d be dumb to kill Lucifer without knowing what his plan is, but keeping him here is making everybody nervous. Having someone else suggest it for him should be a relief. Somehow, though, Sam can’t let the idea settle. Has the nagging sense that there’s no way it’s gonna be that easy.

“He screwed Crowley over before,” Sam points out. “What’s to say he won’t do it again?”

It’s Cas’s turn to sigh. Sam expects him to say the obvious things— _he’s human now; Crowley’s upped his security; it’ll be different_ —but instead he looks Sam in the eyes and says, “This isn’t your burden to bear.”

Sam blinks under the weight of that look, the unexpectedness. Honestly, he thought he was doing a pretty awesome job of hiding from his responsibilities, holing up the library and leaving Dean and Cas on Devil duty. The sympathy sits heavily on his shoulders.

But Cas just keeps talking, all sad-eyed earnestness. “Just because Lucifer refuses to talk to anyone else doesn’t mean you have to listen. The responsibility isn’t yours.”

“Yeah?” Sam tries to smile, but he’s pretty sure it comes out as a grimace. “You tried telling him that?”

Cas makes a frustrated noise. “It isn’t his decision to make.” He pauses. “You made a mistake once, Sam. That was years ago. You have more than made amends since. You don’t have to keep paying for it.” There’s something a little haunted around his eyes, and it occurs to Sam that he isn’t the only one Cas is trying to convince.

“This is freaking you out,” he says, “isn’t it?”

Cas doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I get it,” Sam tells him. “I do. I mean, the whole possession thing? It’s weird as hell. It was weird as hell even when it wasn’t—him. And if you don’t wanna be here—” He hesitates, because honestly, Sam and Dean keeping Lucifer on lockdown, without the angel up their sleeve for backup? Even with Lucifer human, it’s not his idea of fun. But he can’t force this on anybody else. He sighs. “I get it. I do. You don’t have to stay.”

At that, Cas does look at him. “Sam,” he says. “I don’t— I would never—” He breaks off, glances at his hands. “I made a mistake, too. But you suffered far more at Lucifer’s hands than I. This should be your decision.” He meets Sam’s eyes again, steadier. “Whatever you decide, I’ll help.”

Sam thinks he gets it. “Okay,” he says. He takes a breath. “I hate to say it, but this is the safest place. I know Crowley hates Lucifer as much as any of us, but that doesn’t mean we can trust him. Lucifer’s still gotta be a serious bargaining chip for some people. We can’t drop that in Crowley’s lap. And we can’t just—ditch him somewhere.” He flicks his eyes toward the door. “If he got out, that would be on us.”

Cas doesn’t exactly look happy, but he nods and says, “Very well.” He gets to his feet, chair scraping against the floor tiles. “I should—go relieve Dean.”

Sam offers him a small smile. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not gonna let him get to me.” He hopes he sounds more certain than he feels. 

At least Cas looks vaguely reassured. “Good,” he says. He places his hand on Sam’s shoulder for a moment as he passes. 

The door closes behind him. Sam groans and lets his head fall forward into his hands. 

He stays there for a couple minutes, just letting himself sag with exhaustion. Then he hears footsteps in the corridor and drags himself upright before Dean can stick his head through the door and catch him brooding. 

Dean’s footsteps pass on down the corridor. Sam drags out a folder of Kevin’s old translation notes and buries himself in them, cross referencing them with the binding spell on the box, trying to decode even a little of what’s scratched into the surface.

He doesn’t get anywhere, but at least it keeps him occupied; gives him something to think about that isn’t the Devil in the dungeon.

It would be great, except that whenever his mind wanders, he thinks he can hear somebody humming ‘Amazing Grace’.

 

\----

 

Sam sleeps badly that night, unable to drive the echo from his brain. Of course, when he does manage to close his eyes long enough to drift off, he has the dreams. It all gets jumbled up together in his sleeping brain, so that he remembers Lucifer’s grace being ripped from his body to the soundtrack of a cracked little hum echoing off the dungeon walls. For once, waking doesn’t make it better.

He’s up with the dawn, brewing coffee strong enough to make even Dean wince and drinking it at the kitchen table in his sweats. He could go through his usual morning routine. Run, shower, eat whatever Dean makes for breakfast, hole up in the map room or the library. Nobody would raise an eyebrow. Dean and Cas would just keep on trading shifts, letting him hide away.

Sam gives himself a moment to think about it. The idea’s tempting. 

But he’d just be putting off the inevitable, like covering his eyes and going ‘Neener-neener, Satan can’t see me.’ He sighs and finishes his coffee.

He takes a shower before he heads down to the dungeon. Shaves. Dresses. Work boots and sturdy jeans, t-shirt and button-down, like putting on a uniform. Like he’s heading out to face down any other monster. The ritual’s kind of comforting—centers him, makes him feel a little more real—but he still pours himself a fresh mug of coffee before he goes. Something to do with his hands, to keep them from betraying his nervousness.

Cas gives him a troubled look, but steps aside and lets him into the dungeon without comment. Sam doesn’t hear any receding footsteps in the corridor, and he decides that means Cas is standing guard outside, just in case.

Sam lets himself be relieved about that. For a moment, he hovers just inside the door, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. He squints in the direction of the table, where he had his non-conversation with Lucifer yesterday, but once his eyes get used to the dark he realizes there isn’t anybody sitting there.

Instead, there’s a narrow cot pushed against the back wall. Lucifer’s curled on his side on it, apparently sleeping. One of his hands is cuffed to the frame.

The image takes Sam a moment to process. The creature that walked for so long in his nightmares needs to sleep. It feels realer than Cas’s grave pronouncement that _there’s a human soul in there_ ; harder for his brain to integrate.

So he doesn’t try to force it. Instead he hangs back for a moment, observing, trying to be dispassionate.

Lucifer has his back to the wall. Left arm stuck out at an odd angle because of the handcuffs. The cot frame is iron—probably a Men of Letters custom design—and nailed to the floor. Not that either of those things would make a difference if they had a full-powered archangel crashing in their dungeon.

But they don’t. Cas’s angelic sight and every test Dean tried while he was gone insist that Lucifer really is just a man—and so does the evidence of Sam’s own eyes. 

Just a man.

There are bags under his eyes, and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days. He’s thinner than Sam remembers. Where did he wake up? And if he came back the same time Amara died, what’s he been doing in the meantime? Back when Cas turned human, he was in a pretty bad way before Sam and Dean found him, trekking from one homeless shelter to another, living off trash—but Cas wasn’t too proud to do what he had to to survive. Would an angel who avoided humanity like the plague even recognize hunger, or tiredness, when he felt them?

Nick—yes, of course Sam remembers the poor bastard’s name—wasn’t exactly a small guy, but Sam has a couple inches on him, plus a life spent fighting monsters that he mostly couldn’t kill with a thought. He’s a decade younger, maybe more. And okay, maybe he hasn’t been sleeping too well lately, but at least he _has_ a bed and three meals a day. Right now, if it came down to it, Sam could probably take the Devil in a fight.

The thought startles something that’s almost a laugh out of him, and in the gloom, Lucifer stirs.

Sam goes very still, hands tightening around his coffee.

Lucifer blinks a couple times and sits up, wincing when the handcuffs catch on the bedframe and wriggling until he finds a more comfortable position. He’s frowning a little, like he’s affronted at the indignity, and there’s something deeply uneasy in the sight of something so old and vast and alien struggling to untangle his own limbs.

He looks up, then. His eyes find Sam’s face, and their gaze sharpens. 

“Couldn’t stay away?” he asks, and Sam shakes his head to clear it of those disconcerting thoughts. Lucifer may be mortal, but he isn’t human in any way that counts. 

Sam pulls his arms in against his body, holding his coffee mug before his chest like some kind of shield. “We’re taking shifts,” he says.

Lucifer raises an eyebrow, and Sam immediately curses himself for answering, for giving him anything. 

“Really?” Lucifer says. “Now, I’m no expert, but I’d say Dean and little Castiel aren’t convinced it’s a good idea, you being in the rotation. If you made an excuse? I’m pretty sure they’d take it.” He turns that old, curious look on Sam. “So nobody made you come back, Sam. Nobody but you.” 

It’s not a question, but it sounds like one, and Sam fights the urge to hunch in on himself. “Yeah, well,” he says. “You showed up on our doorstep, so I guess that makes you our responsibility. And I don’t shirk.”

“Like you didn’t shirk when you ran out?” Sam ignores the barb, and Lucifer shrugs. “Anyway, I appreciate your collective spirit, Sam, but we both know it’s unnecessary. I’m not your responsibility, plural.” He makes a vague, encompassing gesture with his free hand. “I’m yours.” He points at Sam. “At least, that’s what your conscience is telling you, and who am I to argue?”

Sam grits his teeth. “Are we done with the armchair psych?”

Another shrug. “If you insist.”

Lucifer looks ready to let it go, but there’s something satisfied in his face, and maybe that’s what keeps Sam from leaving it alone and ducking out to watch the door from the corridor. “Anyway, so what if I _do_ feel responsible? It doesn’t change anything. You still don’t have your grace, and you can’t possess me anymore. So what does it get you?”

The briefest flicker of an expression crosses Lucifer’s face. Something opaque, but very different from the smug serenity he put on like a mask the moment he woke up.

It only lasts half a second. Then he raises his eyes to Sam’s again, smirks, and says, “How about some coffee?”

Sam blinks at him. “What?”

“As human inventions go, it’s… not bad. Useful. And your brother isn’t exactly a forthcoming host. I think his words were, _Go screw yourself_.” Lucifer raises his free hand and scrubs it through the front of his hair, forehead creasing. “That might be why I have a headache.”

The Devil got himself hooked on caffeine on his way from wherever he landed to the bunker, even though he apparently couldn’t be bothered to stop for a bite to eat. Sam files that away in his mental folder of facts he isn’t thinking about because he doesn’t know what to do with them.

“You know,” Lucifer goes on, “I’m developing a newfound respect for you apes, dealing with the whole morning-brain thing every day. Mine isn’t working too well right now. I mean, a mug of joe might help jog my memory, but I guess if I haven’t earned the privilege…” He shrugs and swings his legs back up onto the cot, looking at Sam out the corner of his eye.

It’s obvious that he’s expecting Sam to argue. Storm out in annoyance at being played with, or stand around for Lucifer to talk circles around him again.

Instead, apprehension uncurling in his gut, he takes a couple steps forward and holds out the mug.

He can’t parse the look that Lucifer gives him in response. If it were on anybody else’s face, he’d call it surprise. Lucifer doesn’t say anything, though; just turns the mug between his hands a couple times, looks at it curiously, then lifts it to his mouth and takes a drink.

He grimaces. “No sugar.”

Sam blinks down at him in incredulity. All he can think of to say is, “It’ll make your teeth fall out,” a hangover from every breakfast conversation he’s ever had with Dean. 

Lucifer actually laughs up at him—as if they’re friends, people who can share a joke.

“I know why you can’t stay away,” he says, then, and Sam snaps out of _this is weird_ and right back to _this is dangerous_ , something snapping shut inside of him, steel-trap cold.

He crosses his arms. “Do you.” He makes it sound as little like a question as possible.

“Of course. You keep coming back, same reason you keep running away. I _know_ you, Sam.” 

Like a dog with a bone. The old _we’re not so different, you and I_ spiel, and Lucifer isn’t gonna let it drop until he gets a response, is he? 

Sam should walk out the door and not look back. He thinks about it. He even turns to leave.

“Go ahead,” Lucifer says, behind him. “You’ll come back.” He says it with simple certainty, like he’s telling Sam that dinner is at six, or the weatherman says it’s going to rain today.

That’s what makes Sam turn on the spot, stalk back into the room. He stops just out of reach of Lucifer, fighting the urge to slam his fist down on the table. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, fine. Tell me what I’m thinking.”

Lucifer shakes his head. “Not thinking. Feeling. You’re angry, Sam. You’ve been angry for a long time.”

People used to say that about him a lot. A memory surfaces, unbidden: the dayroom at the mental hospital where Martin summoned them, throwing punches at shadows, his head spinning from wraith venom. It hadn’t been so long after Ellen and Jo got killed. Their faces used to swim behind his eyelids every time he closed them. 

Sam digs fingernails into his palms. “That was a long time ago.”

“Mm-mm.” Lucifer shakes his head, looking for all the world like a disappointed kindergarten teacher faced with a kid who won’t admit he took the last cookie. “Look at what’s happened in the meantime, Sam. You get yanked out of Hell without your soul, and you get the blame for all the things that shell of you did when he was running around without it. Then you get Castiel screwing around with your memories. Dean talking you out of finishing the Trials. Gadreel, riding around in here.” He taps on his forehead with one finger. “Your own brother tricking you into a ‘yes’—hey, even I never did that. He runs off and takes on the Mark of Cain, and when you finally think you’ve found a solution to that, boom! Another end of the world. And to cap it all off…” He shrugs again, pointing a finger back at himself. “Even your grand sacrifice turns out not to be a permanent solution. You didn’t stop being angry, Sam. You just stopped letting yourself feel it.”

The words needle at him, maddening as falling in poison ivy. Lucifer doesn’t have the right to know about all that stuff, let alone to talk about it, to try and convince Sam _he_ , of all people, understands. 

“Stop talking.” Sam takes a step forward, hands clenching into fists, independent of his volition. It’s only the realization that Lucifer looks _pleased_ that stops him. 

He’s being baited. Of course he is. Of course Lucifer has some ulterior motive here—even if Sam has no clue what he was hoping to achieve by getting slugged in the face.

Sam turns on the spot. “You can keep the coffee,” he says, and lets himself out the door.

He leans up against the dungeon door, finding that he’s breathing hard. Cas gives him a concerned look. “Sam?”

Sam shakes his head. “Guess he isn’t ready to talk sense yet.” 

Cas nods, gravely. “Go eat breakfast,” he says. “I’ll stay here.”

This time, Sam’s selfish enough to say, “Thanks,” and flee. But he still imagines he can feel those pale eyes on his back as he walks up the corridor.

He feels them while he pours himself more coffee, scowling when he realizes he left his favorite mug with Lucifer. He feels them while he runs, while he showers, while he summons up a brittle smile to fend off Dean’s not-exactly-subtle prodding. He feels them while he works in the library, running his fingers over the sigils on the box and scanning through Kevin’s notes for what feels like the hundredth time. Sam can’t shake the sensation that he’s going to look around and find Lucifer hovering at his shoulder, expression a mocking blank. 

So he buries himself in translations and sigils as best he can. He doesn’t get anywhere with the box, either, but at least it’s a methodical kind of not getting anywhere, like running on a treadmill instead of chasing his tail. 

Eventually, he caves, snaps a picture of the box on his phone and texts it to Linda Tran. _Sorry to bother you_ , he adds. _Just wondered if Kevin could take a look._

They haven’t heard from the Trans in a good few months; Sam doesn’t even really know if Kevin’s still around, still clinging to his old personality and not turned into some vengeful-spirit nightmare, though he likes to think Ms. Tran would’ve called them if she needed help. 

After a couple minutes, the terse answer comes back: _He doesn’t recognize it. Not Metatron’s writing._

 _Thanks_ , Sam replies. After a moment, he adds, _Hope you’re both doing okay_ , then winces and wishes he could un-send the message.

There’s no answer to that, not that he can blame her. 

He’s sitting at the table, still frowning at the screen of his phone, when Dean pokes his head through the door. 

Dean lifts an eyebrow. “Somebody call?”

“Huh?” Sam looks up from his phone, blinking. “Oh. No. I wish. Just, uh, figured I’d ask if Kevin had any idea about this stuff.” He waves a hand in the direction of the box.

“Kevin? Huh.” Dean’s expression turns pensive. “You get through to him?”

Sam nods. “His mom, anyway. No joy, though. He doesn’t recognize the handwriting, or whatever you want to call it.”

Dean nods, still thoughtful. He stands there for a moment, studying the box. Then he sighs and looks at Sam. “You really think it’s a coincidence?” he says.

Sam blinks at the non sequitur. “Coincidence?”

“That.” Dean nods at the box. “Getting delivered here the same day Satan knocks on our door. I mean, our line of work? We’ve seen more unicorns than genuine coincidences. I’m just saying we’d be dumb not to think about it.”

“You’re saying we should ask Lucifer about the box.” Sam can’t deny that it makes a certain degree of sense. Not that that necessarily means anything, if Lucifer isn’t talking.

“I’m saying he might know something.” Dean pulls out a chair and sinks into it, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “I mean, even if he wasn’t bullshitting you and he really did just… wake up human after Amara bought it? Not exactly our number one fan. He probably ain’t here for the company.”

“Yeah.” Sam closes his eyes, suddenly feeling really fucking tired. “Probably not.”

Lucifer didn’t mention the box, didn’t show any sign of knowing it exists, but it isn’t like that means anything. He spent months trying to convince Sam to say ‘yes’, millennia plotting his first escape from the Cage. If he really wants whatever’s in that box, he’ll be as patient as a spider in a web. 

Maybe that was the point of all that amateur psych stuff this morning—trying to get Sam to lose it and tell Lucifer something he isn’t supposed to know. Makes about as much sense as anything else. It ought to be kind of reassuring, knowing what the ulterior motive is. Lucifer probably insisted on talking to Sam because he’s the weak link, the easiest to mindfuck. The most likely to give something away. 

Dean is frowning at the box, reaching out to touch it with a fingertip, careful, like he thinks it might burn him.

“So,” he says. “Any guesses what Satan’s looking for?”

“Some kind of weapon?” Sam hazards. “Or maybe a magical artefact? If I were an archangel that landed on earth human, first thing I’d try to do is get my powers back.”

“You think there’s some kind of magical doohickey out there that could do that?”

“I don’t know.” Sam looks backs at the box. It’s still giving nothing away, just like the asshole in the dungeon, and he feels that same, faint spark of anger that kindled in him earlier. 

Lucifer thinks he’s an easy mark. Thinks that he knows Sam better than he knows himself, even after all this time. And Sam’s hiding up here like he’s afraid Lucifer’s right.

He gets abruptly to his feet, lifting the box in both hands. “You know what?” he says. “Let’s find out.”

For a second, Dean just blinks at him, but when Sam turns to leave the room, Dean’s on his feet, following a couple seconds behind. He catches up as Sam stalks down the corridor. “You sure about this?” 

Sam offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile, though it doesn’t really feel like either. “Yeah. We need to know, right? All we can do is ask.”

Dean nods, but he still comes with. Cas stands aside without comment to let them through, but follows them into the dungeon, hanging back on Sam’s other side. Sam feels a little steadier with both of them at his back. A little less like Lucifer can see right through him.

Lucifer’s sitting at the table now, dressed in unfamiliar clothes, hands cuffed in front of him. He has his eyes closed, but at the sound of footsteps, he opens them. 

They light immediately on the box in Sam’s hands, bright and interested. “What’s that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Sam keeps his voice as flat and steady as he can.

Lucifer gives him a disappointed look. “So we’re back to the interrogations? I thought we made a connection this morning.” Then he perks up. “Still. You did come back.”

Sam doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He sets the box down on the table, on the edge nearest him, so that Lucifer can’t reach it. Lucifer’s fingers give an involuntary-looking twitch, but he doesn’t reach out for the box, just looks it over curiously.

“Well?” 

Lucifer looks up at him. “I said I’d talk to you. Not them.” His eyes flick from Dean to Cas and back again.

“So you do have something to talk about.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Sam resists the urge to groan, to scrub a hand through his hair or thump it down on the table. “Are you going to tell me anything or not?”

“Lose Tweedledum and Tweedledumber and you might find out.”

Lucifer’s expression is placid, but there’s mulish stubbornness beneath it. At his side, Sam feels Dean bristle; hears Cas inch protectively toward the two of them. Which is comforting, but not actually getting them anywhere. With a sigh, Sam turns around.

“It’s okay,” he says, mostly to Dean. He places a protective hand on top of the box. “I’m not gonna—I don’t know, hand it over, or whatever.” It’s cool beneath his palm. For a second, Sam imagines he feels a faint vibration beneath the surface, but it’s gone before he can decide if it was real or just his own hand trembling. He shakes off the thought and tries to look reassuring. “I’ll be fine.”

Dean crosses his arms. “No way.”

“Aww, Dean. Still thinks I’m the big bad wolf.” Lucifer looks up at him with the hint of a smirk. “You know, it’s actually kinda flattering.”

“You know what? I’m starting to think I don’t care if you got any info or not. Beating the crap out of you would still be doing the world a favor. Hell, maybe they’ll even give me a ticket upstairs.”

Lucifer just turns his gaze back to Sam. “Now see, that’s what I’m talking about. You can be reasonable. Your brother’s just too highly strung. So anything I’ve got to say, I’ll say to you.”

Dean gives his coldest smile, the one that’s still a little too close to _demon_ for Sam to be comfortable looking at it. “You don’t like the arrangements, write your congressman.”

“Dean.” Sam takes his arm and jerks his head toward the door. Dean resists for half a second, but then goes with it, motioning Cas to follow. Cas has the good sense to retrieve the box before trailing them out into the corridor.

By the time Cas has the doors bolted, Dean’s scowling again. “We ain’t giving that piece of shit what he wants,” he warns.

Sam sighs, pushing hair out of his face. “What he _wants_ is us losing our heads.”

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, like he’s starting to get a headache. His shoulders sag. “Yeah,” he admits. “Yeah, you’re probably right. What the hell is his game?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he wants whatever’s in that box and he’s hoping we’ll slip up. Maybe he just gets off on screwing with people. The thing is, he’s been inside my head, and he’s been inside Cas’s. He knows what strings to pull. What’s gonna piss us off. All three of us in there, trying to look out for each other—that makes us easy to screw with.” Sam takes a deep breath. “So how about we don’t fall for it? We go along with it instead. We—observe, and we see what happens.”

“You’re saying you wanna go back in there alone?”

Sam nods, hoping he appears less freaked than he feels about the idea of going back in there. Lucifer’s gotten under his skin both times previous. What makes him think this is gonna be any different? “Well, hey, he can’t hurt me, right?” he says, glancing sideways at Cas.

Cas throws an uncertain look at Dean, but says, “That’s true.”

“Okay.” Dean’s mouth is an unhappy line. “But just the fact he’s trying to get you on your own—doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Yeah.” Sam draws himself up, squares his shoulders, and tries to look like he’s sure about this. “It tells me he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks.” 

“You’re sure about this?”

Not even a little bit. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Fine. We’ll be outside. Right outside.” 

“Got it. Thanks.” Sam’s voice comes out tight, but Dean doesn’t raise any further objections. Solemn-faced, Cas places the box in his hands and unbolts the door. It closes quietly behind him. 

In the dungeon, Lucifer’s smiling. 

And Sam feels so damn tired of it all. The mindgames, the feeling like he’s being watched, like he isn’t safe in his own home. He sets the box back on the table and crosses his arms.

“Cut the crap,” he says. “What do you know about this?”

Lucifer drops the smile, and Sam gets the distinct impression of a veil falling away. Not that that makes Sam feel any easier. He’s known Lucifer for centuries, if you count the Cage—if you could really know anything down there—and he still couldn’t begin to guess where the layers of deception end, or if there’s anything real left underneath them. Maybe Sam’s just passed a test he didn’t know he was taking, or maybe this is just the next move in some complicated game. 

_Go along with it_ , he reminds himself. He stays quiet. Lucifer watches him for another moment, expression unreadable, then turns to contemplate the box through narrowed eyes. 

“It’s Enochian,” he says, at length. “Not that you needed me to tell you that.”

“I didn’t.” Sam hears his own impatience breaking through. Lucifer glances up, turns that curious look on him again. For all that wait-and-observe was his idea, Sam’s starting to feel like he’s the lab rat here.

“Some kind of a binding spell,” Lucifer goes on. “I’m guessing you haven’t been able to open it.”

“I didn’t need you to tell me that, either.”

“I haven’t seen this inscription before, though. It’s custom work. Whoever spelled this box, they must be a pretty powerful witch.”

Sam feels his hands clench into fists. “Great. If only we knew a powerful witch we could ask. Oh, wait, we did. You killed her.”

“My bad.” Lucifer spreads his hands as best he can with the cuffs on, almost apologetic, except that there’s still nothing but cool interest in his eyes.

He’s just playing human. That’s all. For a moment, Sam entertains the fantasy of punching him in the face, giving him a bloody nose. He can’t blame Dean for thinking about it. At least he’d know the blood was real.

Instead, he takes a deep breath and says, “So? What else?”

“That’s all I’ve got.” There’s the almost-regretful look again. “Sorry.”

“Really.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Lucifer pauses, looks at his hands. “Well, I _would_ , but…”

Sam stares, a snort of mirthless laughter breaking out of him. “You’re giving me your word.”

Lucifer watches him steadily. “Of course.”

“Yeah well.” Sam uncrosses his arms; inhales, deep and shuddery. “We both know how much your promises are worth.” 

He slams his hand down on the table, palm first, the bang so loud in the dungeon that it startles him. Lucifer doesn’t flinch, though. 

Sam gathers himself. His voice comes out cold and steady. “Remember all the promises you made when you thought I was gonna be your puppet? ‘I’ll never lie to you.’ ‘I’ll never hurt you.’ How the hell do you expect me to take your word for anything?”

“I never said you had to take it. Just that it’s all I’ve got to give you.” Another shrug. “I solemnly swear I have never seen that box before.”

Abruptly, Sam turns away from the table. He’s breathing hard, fists clenched at his sides, and Lucifer still looks as unruffled as if they’re talking about the weather.

It isn’t fair. 

Lucifer died. He died, and he came back human— _human_ , the thing he’s hated since the dawn of time—and he’s claiming he doesn’t even know how that happened, and he’s just smirking like it’s still 2010 and he thinks he knows the world’s destiny. He could kill with a thought, and now he’s chained up in the dungeon and Sam has the keys. So it isn’t fair that he gets to sit there looking like the king of the castle while Sam chases his tail for answers and tries to shut out the nightmares.

He turns back, hands still in fists. “Tell me the truth.”

Lucifer sighs. “I already did.”

“No. No, you didn’t. You know, maybe you pushed that I-don’t-lie crap pretty hard once upon a time, but I don’t think you’ve ever given me a straight answer about anything.” Sam groans, pushing a hand through his hair. “This was a bad idea. I should’ve known better.”

“Believe what you want to believe. I’m trying to help you out here, Sam. If you don’t—”

The impulse seizes hold of Sam before he has time to think about it. A bright flare of anger that makes him draw back his fist and punch the Devil right in his too-reasonable face.

In the half-second before his fist connects, he sees a flash of something like triumph in Lucifer’s eyes.

It isn’t even a good punch, with the angle all wrong and the table in between them, but Lucifer’s head snaps back, eyes closing, hands twitching in an involuntary flinch. Sam’s elbow connects with his coffee mug, still sitting on the edge of the table after this morning, and it flies off to shatter on the floor. 

When Lucifer straightens up, there’s blood trickling from his left nostril. His face is still impassive, though, and Sam knows that somehow, he’s lost something here.

He turns away, breathing hard, a lurch of nausea in his guts. 

His vision skews and shimmers. 

A vision, he thinks, distantly, as it closes in on him. A memory of light and pain and searing cold. Something being torn from him—something fundamental, like having his guts ripped open, his spine pulled out. Starlight burning in his lungs. 

It feels real, the way the dreams do, the way his visions of Jess dying on the ceiling felt real. Somehow he’s sure that it _is_ real, that it’s already happened. It isn’t one of his memories of the Cage—though on paper, he thinks it might sound like one. Still, it feels like something he’s lived, tangible and near enough to make the hairs on his arms stand on end.

Sam gasps for air; opens his eyes.

Lucifer’s still watching him, but he isn’t smiling anymore. He’s blinking like he’s just come back to himself, too, a thin line of blood still trickling down his face. He must have seen it too.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice; the sound of the bolts sliding open. “Sammy, I heard a crash, I’m coming in!”

There are questions Sam should ask. He doesn’t ask them. 

“I’m okay, Dean,” he calls. “I’m coming out.” And he turns on the spot and flees, leaving the Devil to stare after him without a word.


	4. Chapter 4

“So, that worked.”

Sam slumps back against the corridor wall. Dean’s standing between him and the dungeon doors, brow furrowed, and he doesn’t drag out the I-told-you-sos, which tells Sam he must be looking pretty freaked.

“Yeah.” He clasps his hands in front of him, half-consciously running the thumb of his left hand over the knuckles of his right. There’s no blood on them. “I got that.” He closes his eyes and lets his head thunk back against the wall.

“C’mon.” Dean takes his arm. “Cas has got this. Let’s go.”

Sam lets himself be steered up the corridor and into the kitchen, Dean’s usual destination when things are going to shit, and sits down at the table. At least Dean goes for the sandwich ingredients instead of the beer. He bustles round the kitchen, keeping his hands busy—and not giving Sam the third degree, not that Sam knows what he’d say if Dean asked. _I punched Lucifer in the face, and now I kind of think that’s what he wanted me to do?_ Or, _I had a creepy vision, and I think Lucifer had the same creepy vision, and I’m scared to even think about what that means?_

Luckily, Dean doesn’t ask what happened. Maybe he just figures it’s obvious: Sam really is the weak link, and Lucifer still knows exactly how to get under his skin. Hell, it’s likely true, though the thought of Lucifer being right about him makes him want to punch something again, probably himself.

Dean just slides a plate onto the table in front of him. “Eat.”

Sam restrains himself from making a face. He’s got no appetite, but it occurs to him that he never did eat breakfast, and Dean’s watching him expectantly, so he forces down a couple bites.

Apparently satisfied, Dean drops into the chair opposite him and scarfs down half of his own with just a little too much theatrical enthusiasm. Sam knows when he’s putting on a show of being just fine, playing the gross big brother out of a family sitcom, but right now, he doesn’t have it in him to question it. He’s grateful for the show of stability, even if it’s mostly show.

“So,” Dean says, at length, eyeing Sam over the top of his sandwich. “Change of plan?”

Sam nods. “Change of plan,” he says. “I’ll stay out of there.”

It feels a little like admitting defeat, but not enough to make him change his mind.

 

\----

 

And he sticks to the plan. He stays the hell away.

He lets Dean and Cas take shifts watching the dungeon. He lets Dean retrieve the box—left on the table in the dungeon after he stormed out—and lock it in a drawer in one of the storerooms where Sam doesn’t have to look at it. Okay, so he’s gonna have to think about it sometime, but not right now. 

Not while he can’t look at his hands without remembering how it felt when his fist connected with Lucifer’s face; how Lucifer looked at him and made him feel like he’d lost some game he hadn’t known he was playing. Not while he can’t close his eyes without remembering visions of white light and loss—and how Lucifer looked at him _then_ , like that wasn’t part of the plan.

To shut out the thoughts, he sits up late drinking too much coffee, scouring small-town news websites for something, anything, to occupy them. Screw _shirking_ : Cas was right. He knows Dean will head out with him if he asks. He knows Cas will stand guard at the bunker while they head out, uncomplaining through his latest round of penance.

After a couple days, he finds a case. Or, enough of one to be worth checking out, anyway. Sam isn’t about to question it.

It could be nothing. Half the time, posts about small-town devil worship just mean kids screwing around, or some church lady found a Marilyn Manson album in her teenager’s bedroom. Right now, it goes without saying that the Devil’s got nothing to do with it. 

Still, it’s the excuse Sam needs to get out of the bunker, and Dean needs no persuading to agree, “Let’s check it out.”

Cas lets them go with a nod and a solemn, “I’ll let you know if anything changes.” 

Sam manages a small smile. “Yeah. Look—thanks, Cas. I—we appreciate this. Really.”

“It’s the least I can do.” Cas casts a minute sideways glance at the dungeon doors, and Sam can’t help but follow his eyes. The doors are closed, of course. On the other side, silence.

Sam gets the hell out of there before that can change.

 

\----

 

The hunt leads them to an empty church in Oklahoma, which looks like exactly the kind of place a bunch of small-town teenagers might choose to re-enact _The Craft_. Sam keeps the safety on his gun as they approach the building; he’s starting to think they might end up with nothing more to do here than issue a stern ‘Don’t mess with demons’ warning. 

For once, the idea that this might be a milk run doesn’t fill him with relief. 

One of those slogan billboards stands out front, bearing the legend _“Ch__ch. What’s missing? UR!”_ Sam shakes his head at the awful pun as he passes, a little surprised that the sign hasn’t been vandalized. It seems to be begging for some kid with a spraycan to get creative.

The side door of the church is hanging off its hinges. Sam shoulders it aside, careful that it doesn’t creak loud enough to give away his presence, and lets himself in. He listens out for Dean opening the door at the other end of the building, and inches into the echoing space.

A whiff of sulfur stops him in his tracks.

He freezes on the spot, free hand going for the demon-killing knife in his belt, scanning the church for movement in the dark.

Nothing. It’s empty; silent. There’s nobody here. Sam breathes out. 

Dean’s obviously come to the same conclusion, because his flashlight blinks to life on the other side of the church. Sam shoves his gun back into his waistband and grabs his own, letting the thin beam glance over the mess inside the church. Empty pews, broken windows, a fallen crucifix up front.

Three dead bodies on the floor.

Sam crouches over the closest one, feeling for a pulse. Looks up and shakes his head at Dean’s questioning glance.

Dean frowns, then leans over to look at the body closest to him. He turns it over.

The guy was probably in his sixties. Shirt and tie, neatly-trimmed beard and glasses. The dead woman Sam’s crouching over is a plump fortysomething in mom jeans and a pink sweater. Her face is ashy, discolored around the lips. She’s been dead longer than she’s been lying here.

Dean groans and straightens up. “So much for Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”

“Yeah.” Sam gets to his feet. “Looks like demons. Must’ve smoked out before we got here.” He tries very, very hard not to think, _Thank God there’s a case here after all._

As he stands, the beam of Sam’s flashlight catches something on the wall. He peers at it through the gloom, motioning to get Dean’s attention. Dean raises his flashlight so they can see the whole thing.

There are symbols painted on the walls—the kind of wards you’d expect at a demon convention, especially one being held under the radar. And above them, a line of Latin.

_VIVAT RE_

The rest of it is an illegible smear, but it’s enough.

“ _Vivat Rex_. Long live the King,” Sam murmurs, fingers tightening on the handle of his knife.

“That can’t be good.”

“No.” Sam swallows. “That definitely can’t be good.

 

\----

 

They don’t wait to burn the bodies. Sam calls it in to the local PD while Dean drives, heading, by unspoken agreement, straight back to the bunker. So much for getting away from it all.

The demon thing—well, doesn’t look good is an understatement. It looks like something big, only Sam can’t really get his head around what it is. Crowley’s back in charge downstairs now, but last time he took the throne, he had to weed out the Lucifer loyalists still hanging around. That was why Meg hated him so much, at least to start with. It doesn’t seem too unlikely that there are a few more hanging around after Lucifer’s latest stint on the throne, short as it was.

But demons aren’t exactly loyal out of affection. They want to be on the winning side; they find the biggest bad around and cling to him, or her, like remoras on the belly of a shark. Lucifer’s human now. Pretty much powerless. And if he still has a bunch of demons on his side, why show up at the bunker? It’s pretty much the safest place on the planet if you’re trying to keep supernatural nasties out, but not if you’re expecting them to come do your bidding. If Lucifer knows what’s in the box and that’s what he wants, why didn’t he send a demon minion to intercept it before it got to Sam and Dean?

The whole thing makes Sam’s head hurt. Instead of going round in circles thinking about it, he calls Cas.

“Sam.” Cas sounds worried on the other end of the line, but then Cas always sounds worried. “Is everything alright?”

“We’re fine,” he says. “Hunt was a bust. Well, the actual hunting part, anyway. The demons had smoked out by the time we got there.”

“Demons?”

Sam scrubs a hand down his face. “Yeah, and that’s not all. They’d put up a kind of—I guess a slogan?—on the wall where we found them. _Long live the king_.”

“You think this was the work of a demon faction?”

“That’s our best guess.” Sam pauses. “I guess there’s no point asking if—if our guest has given anything away?”

“Lucifer still refuses to speak to me.”

“That’s what I figured.” Sam sighs and sinks back into the shotgun seat. “We’ll be home around noon.” He pauses, swallowing hard. “I’ll just have to try talking to him again.”

“Hold on,” Dean cuts in. “Cas, can you hear me?”

Sam obediently puts the phone on speaker. “Yes,” Cas says, and there’s a note of warmth in his voice that makes Sam smile a little, despite everything. If Lucifer showing up out of the blue has gotten them talking again—well, maybe it’s good for something, even if not for Sam. “Hello, Dean.” 

Dean gives a tiny smile, but he gets straight to business. “Listen,” he says. “We’ve probably got everything we need for a summoning in the storerooms somewhere. They’re not far from the dungeon. Can you get it set up by the time we arrive?”

Sam looks at him sideways. “Who are we summoning?”

Dean keeps his eyes on the road. “Look, I don’t wanna bring Crowley into this mess any more than you do, but he’s our best shot at finding out what the demons are up to. And he hasn’t answered a text since we got rid of Amara.”

There’s a sigh down the phone, but Cas chimes in, “Dean’s right. Lucifer isn’t giving us anything. Crowley’s our only likely source.”

Sam holds up his hands and refrains from asking, _What the fuck do you text Crowley about anyway?_ Honestly, after the last few days, inviting Crowley to the bunker for a chat is pretty low on his list of things to freak out about. “Fine,” he says. “Fine. Let’s call the _other_ king of Hell.”

 

\----

 

Cas has the summoning spell all laid out in the library when they reach the bunker. Sam gives him a tired smile and drops into one of the chairs.

“I took the precaution of adding some extra wards outside the dungeon,” Cas offers, after a moment. He shifts his weight uncomfortably, and Sam realizes he’s probably expecting to catch flak for abandoning his post. “Lucifer appeared to be sleeping.”

Dean claps him on the shoulder. “Hey, you’ve got all those extra angel senses, right? You’d know if he freaking sneezed down there. No need for you to stand outside the door.”

“You’re right.” Cas’s troubled look fades a little, but not completely. Sam guesses he’s gotten used to the human way of doing things—and honestly, Sam would feel better if they had eyes on Lucifer all the time, too. Maybe they should install a baby monitor or something.

Dean’s right, though. Sam repeats that to himself. He’s still repeating it when Dean comes back from the kitchen with three beers in hand, flipping the top off of one of them and handing it to Sam.

It’s cool in his hand, condensation turning to water droplets at his touch. One of them runs down his wrist and he watches it instead of drinking. It’s just one beer, wouldn’t usually touch him, but lately, he feels the need to keep a clear head. Just in case.

Dean nudges his shoulder. “C’mon, Sammy,” he says. “We’re gonna need it.”

Cas takes a swig from his own bottle before setting it down carefully on a bookshelf, well clear of the summoning materials. “I imagine alcohol might make speaking with Crowley marginally easier,” he agrees. Then he frowns a little. “It’s a shame it has little effect on me.”

That makes Dean crack a smile, and Sam feels some of the balled-up tension inside of him lessen. He takes a swallow of beer, then gets to his feet. “C’mon. Let’s get this over with.”

The summoning’s pretty much rote, by now. A chant, a flash of flame giving way to pungent smoke, and Crowley’s standing in front of them, brushing imaginary lint off of his lapels and glaring at Dean. “You could’ve called,” he says. “Given me a little warning.”

Dean flashes a grin, maybe not as cold as it should be. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Crowley’s glare intensifies. “You forfeited your calling-me-for-fun privileges when you lot dredged my old boss up from the Cage and got me locked in a kennel for two months, darling. Now what can I pretend to consider helping you with before I tell you to sod off?”

“Demons,” Dean says. “Specifically, shady, warded-to-the-gills demon hangouts where they’re plotting to—dude.” He frowns. “Are you even listening to me?”

Because Crowley isn’t looking at him, isn’t looking at any of them. He has his head cocked, like he’s listening to some sound they can’t hear. 

“You’ve got one here,” he says, then frowns. “You’ve got _something_ here, anyway. Something from Hell.” He looks from Dean to Sam and back again with narrowed eyes. Sniffs like he’s just realizing somebody’s trodden in dog crap. “It doesn’t exactly come out in the wash, and this is ingrained. Not a day tripper like you lot.” 

He turns toward the door as though drawn by a magnet, eyes down. Then he snaps his fingers and vanishes.

Dean’s first out the library door, Sam and Cas on his heels. Sam’s heart skips a little as he opens the dungeon doors, but having Dean in front of him gives him courage—and for once, when they burst into the room, he finds that he isn’t the focus of Lucifer’s piercing regard.

Lucifer’s watching Crowley instead, tracking his movements with mild interest from where he sits cuffed to the table. 

It’s so different from how he looked in Limbo, prowling behind the bars of that holding cell like a big cat in a zoo. Then, there was nothing but murder in his eyes when he saw who was sitting on his throne. Now, he’s almost idle, looking at Crowley like he’s an insect that’s flown into the room and will probably fly out again a moment later. 

There’s a bruise fading on his left cheekbone. Sam tries not to look at it.

Crowley’s backing toward the door, staring at Lucifer in shock. He catches himself before he crashes into Dean and turns around to glare at them. “Like I said. You could’ve called.”

“Yeah, but if I’d told you he was invited you wouldn’t have shown.” Dean pauses, frowns. “Not that he _was_ invited. Anyway, he can’t hurt you. You can see that, right? Human.”

Lucifer makes a face. “Hey. Actually in the room here.” 

Dean snorts. “Oh, it speaks.”

“Considerably more languages than you.”

“And yet you still can’t say anything helpful.”

Crowley looks at Dean like he’s just grown an extra head. “You’ve been _working_ with _him_?”

“Oh, this is definitely not working.”

The whole thing’s rapidly devolving into exactly the kind of mess Sam feared when Dean suggested calling Crowley. They still don’t have a better plan, though, so he figures he has to do something. He steps forward, holding up both his hands.

“ _Quiet_ ,” he says. It comes out a little louder than he intended, but hey, it actually shuts everyone up. Dean and Crowley turn to look at him with varying expressions of surprise. Cas mostly looks relieved. As for Lucifer—well, Sam tries not to think about that, because his expression’s somewhere between amusement and, if Sam had to guess, admiration.

Naturally, it’s Crowley who breaks the silence. “Moose. You can’t blame me for being a tad skeptical. I mean—” He gestures at Lucifer, who looks like he’s about to jump back in with a retort.

“Stop it,” Sam bursts out, exasperated. “You guys can have your pissing contest later, whatever. You can ask us about—” He gestures in Lucifer’s direction. “—all this. But we summoned you here because of the demons. One thing at a time.”

He’s been keeping one eye on Lucifer—a habit he probably couldn’t shake if he wanted to, never mind that Lucifer might technically be the least dangerous person in the room right now. That’s the only reason he catches the blink of surprise at the mention of demons, the briefest crinkle of a frown. Then the serene mask is back, and Sam can’t be sure he really saw it waver.

Crowley rolls his eyes, but acquiesces. “Okay. Demons. AKA, you lot poking your snotty noses into my business yet again.”

“Yeah,” Dean cuts in, “except we don’t think it was actually your business.”

That makes Crowley raise an eyebrow. “Do tell.”

“Sammy and I checked out a case in Holdenville today. Walked in on the afterparty for a little demon conference.”

“Go on.” Crowley’s frowning, now, and Dean smirks.

“So you didn’t know. So the ‘Long live the King’ graffiti on the wall wasn’t talking about you.”

That doesn’t kick off the expected tirade, to Sam’s surprise. Instead, Crowley looks thoughtful. “King? Well, that’s different.”

Dean drops the smile. “What, you were expecting a queen?”

“As a matter of fact.”

“Huh.” Dean blinks.

“Well, the second word was pretty smudged,” Sam realizes. “And with the Latin—it could’ve been ‘Vivat Regina.’ Not exactly grammatical, but…” He trails off. Lucifer’s apparent puzzlement makes a lot more sense if the demons weren’t actually his lackeys. So does the fact that he isn’t loudly protesting his innocence right now.

“Kids these days, what do they teach them in these schools?” says Crowley. “But yes. There have been… whispers. Some upstart demon calling herself the New Queen of Hell.”

Dean sighs. “Great. Abaddon all over again.”

“Only this one’s got a little more sense about her. Hasn’t made a move yet.” Crowley turns to look at Lucifer again. “If I had to guess, I’d say she was waiting for something. Don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?” To his credit, his voice doesn’t waver. If they hadn’t gotten used to dealing with Hell’s sneakiest in varying states of freaked-out, Sam wouldn’t notice the cracks in his casual façade.

He half-expects Lucifer to sneer, make some kind of dig about Crowley not being able to hold onto his throne. All he does is shrug.

“Not my problem anymore,” he says, and makes a cartoonishly disgusted face. “Demons, queen of Hell, king of Hell, to-may-toh, to-mah-toh. Yeesh.”

It’s just a little too much protest, and behind the grimace, Sam catches a flash of something like recognition.

“Right,” Crowley says, the sarcasm creeping back in as he gains confidence. “Not your problem. Well, you are looking rather comfy in my old spot. Be a shame to drag you back into all that politics stuff, deprive you of the charming company and, ah, lovely ambience of this place.”

Lucifer doesn’t rise to it. “Like I said. Not my problem.” He wriggles in his seat, getting comfy, and smirks up at Crowley. “Still, not my problem means it might actually be kind of amusing. Any chance you could keep Sammy here updated, get him to tell me what’s going on? They won’t let me have a TV, and there are only so many times you can count the angles in the devil’s trap.” And he actually pouts.

“Funnily enough, it stopped being a soap opera right about the time you stopped running the place. Can’t think why.”

Dean gets in between the two of them before Sam has to. “Alright, alright,” he says. “Put ‘em away.” He fixes Crowley with a scowl. “You, out.” He doesn’t bother saying anything to Lucifer, just shakes his head and herds Crowley out of the dungeon. 

Sam follows, letting Cas shut the doors behind him. He’s careful not to look back.

Vaguely, he registers Dean and Crowley sniping at each other, though it seems more rote than anything. There’s a vague warning that Crowley needs to _deal with this_ , because if they keep running into demon activity topside Dean’s gonna deliver some unspecified ass-kicking; an equally unspecified threat against Dean’s life if he doesn’t leave Hell the hell alone. Sam’s heard it all before, so he tunes it out. He finds himself wondering, instead, about that flash of recognition on Lucifer’s face. Maybe he didn’t know about the demon activity, but he looked like he was figuring something out back there.

Whoever this demon calling herself the New Queen of Hell is, he kind of doubts she’s working for Lucifer. Demonic loyalty isn’t sentimental. If she thinks she can take it for herself, she will.

But Lucifer knows who she is. That much, Sam’s sure of.

Which means he’s going to have to ask.

 

\----

 

He waits until Crowley’s cleared out and Dean’s gotten the inevitable rant about how annoying he is out of his system before he brings it up. Dean’s sitting at one of the library tables, cleaning his gun, some fuzzy old concert video playing on YouTube on his laptop. The sound quality sucks, but Sam guesses it’s more of a comfort thing than a music thing. Cas is nowhere to be seen, presumably back at his station by the dungeon doors.

Sam hovers for a moment, just watching Dean, then says, “I think I should speak to Lucifer.”

Dean stares at him. “What the hell for? Those demons ain’t working for him.”

“No.” Sam sighs heavily. “But I think he knows who they are working for.”

Dean sets down the gun and looks at him, unhappy lines around his mouth. “How do you figure?”

“I don’t know. I just—he looked like he was putting two and two together, back there. Call it a feeling.” He looks down. “Believe me, I’m not any happier about the idea of going back in there than you are. But if there are demons running around topside, we gotta try, right?”

“Sammy—” Dean breaks off, shaking his head. “Hell, this is Crowley’s problem, not ours. It ain’t on you.”

There’s nothing Sam would love more than to take the out. But he can’t. Responsibility or just the need to know, he can’t. “And you’re happy to let the demon police handle it? C’mon, Dean. It’s always on us.”

There’s no argument Dean will be able to bring to that, he knows. Dean jabs a finger at him. “Right outside the door. And the second anything goes south—”

“I’ll get out of there. Promise.”

“You bet your ass you do.”

 

\----

 

In the dungeon, Lucifer’s still sitting handcuffed to the table, head tipped back, eyes on the ceiling. Unwillingly, Sam remembers what he said earlier, about counting the angles in the devil’s trap. What does human boredom feel like to a creature that’s used to geological timescales?

He shakes himself. The last thing he needs is to start wondering what Lucifer thinks of the human experience. Lucifer’s an interloper. A heartbeat and a need to eat and sleep don’t make you human. 

Sam meets his level gaze and says, “So, who is she?”

Lucifer tilts his head. Says nothing. There’s curiosity, rather than stubbornness, in the way he looks at Sam—like he just wants to know what Sam will do next. Something kind of corvid about the intelligence in those pale eyes; a reminder he’s a shade less than human.

“This—new Queen of Hell, whatever she’s calling herself,” Sam prods. “You know who she is.”

Lucifer actually looks disappointed. “I’m not exactly up to date on the downstairs gossip, Sam.”

“Don’t.” Sam sighs. “Don’t do that. Just—fuck, be what you said you were, just once. Be straight with me.”

That gets a reaction, at least—not a flinch, but a flicker of something. Kind of indignant, and Sam can’t help his snort of disgust. Lucifer doesn’t get to act offended, not about this. He burned his bridge to the moral high ground the first time he answered Sam’s prayer in somebody else’s name.

Lucifer watches him a moment longer, maybe waiting for some other reaction. When he realizes he isn’t gonna get it, he shrugs. “Crowley was never the only demon with ambitions of running the place,” he says. “‘Queen’ just narrows the field by half. Likely candidates—well, they’re pretty much two-a-penny downstairs.”

Sam grits his teeth and moves closer. “You’re lying,” he says.

“Or you’re not asking the right questions,” Lucifer suggests. “What does it matter who’s the big cahuna down there?” He makes a dismissive gesture, cut short by the handcuffs. “A demon is a demon is a demon. Your brother’s got Crowley on a leash, and whoever the next one is, she probably won’t be eager to get in your way. Why not leave the politics to the politicians?”

“Yeah, that’s all well and good until they start bringing their disputes up here. Tends to get a little messier than rigging the primaries. In case you’d forgotten.”

“Like I said, a demon is a demon. It’s small-time stuff, nothing like the good old days. They’re not exactly overburdened with ambition.”

“Ambition?” Sam stares down at him, a lump in his chest. “That’s what you’re calling it now?” 

Lucifer gives a faint smile. “I always did dream big.” 

Sam feels the anger welling up in him, hot and dark and inexorable, and for all that he’s been telling himself he won’t let Lucifer get to him, he doesn’t try to fight it down. This isn’t just about Lucifer pushing his buttons, knowing how to play with him. It’s deeper than that. Why the hell should he keep his temper, when the Devil’s in his home, sitting there calm as you please, cracking jokes about that time he tried to end the world?

“That wasn’t a dream,” he grits out. He’s leaning over the table, now, getting up in Lucifer’s face, and maybe the proximity would terrify him if he wasn’t too angry to let himself think about it. “The people you killed, the ones whose lives you ruined, because you couldn’t put the world in front of your ego? They were real. You thought you were so much better than us pathetic humans, and now you’re one of us. But you’re still not human. Not really.” He looks Lucifer dead in the eyes; puts all the hurt, all the anger, all the contempt he can summon into his voice. “You are so much less than that.”

There’s a moment of total stillness. The mocking rejoinder Sam expects doesn’t come. He feels his heartbeat in his throat.

Lucifer moves, then. He leans forward into Sam’s space, and Sam can’t help but flinch from a flash of memory. Cold fire; some many-mouthed, ravening thing rearing up at him from black depths.

The Devil kisses his cheek.

His lips are soft and dry. It only lasts a second. Lucifer sits back, then. There’s a faint smile on his face, and his eyes are very clear.

 

\----

 

This time, the vision doesn’t come straight away, and when it does, it comes in fragments. 

One minute Sam’s standing in the corridor, bolting the door closed, giving Dean and Cas a weary headshake to indicate that he didn’t get any sense out of Lucifer. The next, his head is a mess of light and dark, silence and headsplitting noise. Pain, and the soft shock of its departure. 

And something that feels like a memory. Sam struggles to make sense of it. There’s a room, dust motes hanging in shafts of light. A half-familiar voice. He doesn’t know its timbre, but the accent tugs at some thread of memory in the back of his brain.

 _Even you can’t take shortcuts with this kind of magic_ , it says. _It has to be you._


	5. Chapter 5

There was this thing Jess used to do sometimes, when she was freaking out over a test or a paper. A meditation technique. She’d learned it at one of those stress management groups that used to run on campus, Sam thinks, though time has left some of the details a little fuzzy. He never went to anything like that; didn’t need the help, back then. Jess used to joke that the apartment could have been falling down around them and he wouldn’t have batted an eyelid, and he’d give an affectionate laugh when he found her with her eyes closed on the bed, doing her relaxation exercise.

First of all, you were supposed to think about your toes. Just your toes. Where they were in space, what they were doing, how they felt. Nothing else. Then you moved up to the rest of your feet. Then your ankles, then your calves, and on and on until you got up to the crown of your head. The idea, as Jess put it, was that you cleared your mind by being fully present in your body. Got rid of all the insecure little voices in your head telling you that you were gonna fail.

Of course, back then, the little voices telling Sam he was gonna fail had always been outside of his head, and midterms weren’t so scary compared to monsters. 

Sam gave the meditation thing a try for the first time after Meg possessed him, sitting cross-legged on Bobby’s couch when Bobby and Dean had gone to bed. It didn’t exactly clear his mind, but there was comfort in it: feeling every part of his body, knowing that it was under his control. He’s used it intermittently over the years since. After he got his soul back; after Gadreel; after Amara consumed Lucifer and Sam had gotten far enough away to take a breath and appreciate that he was himself again. 

He does it now, in his bedroom with the door closed, trying to ignore the anxious way Dean’s footsteps in the corridor approach and retreat every couple minutes. In a moment Sam will call out and let Dean know that he’s awake. He just needs to get back to himself first.

Skin and bone, muscle and nerve. He tries to keep his mind on the parts of him that are flesh and blood; human. 

That vision—it wasn’t real. At least, it’s nothing that ever happened to him, even if it felt more like a memory than a dream. It wasn’t his memory. It just felt that way for a moment. He knows it was an illusion.

Sam’s gotten as far as his elbows when Dean finally taps at the door. He blinks, but before he can say, “Come in,” Dean’s already gotten it open and poked his head in through the gap.

When he sees that Sam’s sitting up, he steps inside. Cas isn’t with him. 

“You’re awake.” Dean frowns and perches on the end of the bed. “What happened back there?”

Honestly, Sam doesn’t remember too much after the vision. He remembers feeling hazy, holding the wall to stay upright, and Dean steering him back to his room. He remembers protesting, but pretty half-assedly, he thinks. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

He scrubs a hand down his face. “How long was I out?”

“Couple hours. Had me worried, but Cas said you were just sleeping, no weird mojo-y crap. How you feeling?”

“Okay, I think.” Sam’s pretty sure that creepy-ass visions count as _weird mojo-y crap_ , but if Cas says he’s okay now, it must be true. He hasn’t exactly been sleeping much lately. Maybe the vision just knocked him sideways and his body took the opportunity to get some shuteye.

“Anyway, you didn’t answer the question.” Dean shifts around to face him. “What happened?”

Sam sighs. “I had a vision.”

Dean sits up. “A vision?” His eyes narrow. “Did he do something to you?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, he’s human, and the dungeon’s warded to the gills. He couldn’t have pulled any kind of magic trick down there, right?”

“Shouldn’t have been able to, but who knows, man? This is Satan we’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I hadn’t forgotten.” There’s an unintentional edge to his voice, and Dean has the decency to look abashed. “We should talk to Cas, see if this could be some kind of angel thing.”

“I’ll go get him.” 

Cas listens solemnly when Sam repeats the whole thing to him. “An angel without its grace shouldn’t be able to send visions to anybody,” he says, eventually, “but it is theoretically possible there might be some kind of… psychic resonance between a fallen angel and its former vessel. Your being Lucifer’s true vessel makes that more likely.”

Sam swallows around a knot of apprehension. “So Lucifer did this?”

“His presence may have caused it,” Cas allows. “It’s unlikely he’d be able to control what you saw, however. This vision, what was it?”

“Just—light, pretty much. And there was a voice.” Sam frowns. “It said something about magic. And then, _It has to be you_. That was it.”

Dean makes a face. “Yeah, that isn’t ominous at all.” 

“That’s the thing,” Sam says. “I don’t know why but—it didn’t feel like a premonition. More like a memory.”

“That makes sense,” Cas tells him. “There’s no reason you should be able to see the future with this kind of psychic connection, but a snippet of memory might easily be shared.”

He looks like he’s trying to sound reassuring—and okay, it’s better than Lucifer being able to deliberately screw with Sam’s mind. Kind of.

“Okay,” Dean says. “Satan isn’t controlling Sammy’s brain, everyone’s reassured. Kind of. But why would it start now? Shouldn’t it have started when he showed up?”

“There are a number of things that could trigger the connection. Physical contact would be the most effective, but of course that can’t be the case here.” Sam swallows hard, holding himself very still where he sits, but Cas doesn’t seem to notice. “If something triggered a memory of an event that occurred during the possession, that could also set it off.”

Dean’s expression clears. “So, Crowley shows up, Sammy remembers kicking his ass while Lucifer was in the driving seat, boom, vision?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Huh. Could be worse, I guess.” Dean glances over at Sam, then frowns. “Dude, what’s up? Something wrong with your face?”

“What?” Sam blinks at him. Then he realizes he’s touching his cheek, right where Lucifer kissed him. The memory of it tingles, cold like the aftermath of a burn. He snatches his hand away. “No. No, I’m fine. Good to know it isn’t anything worse.” He forces a smile.

“For once,” Dean agrees. He gets to his feet and makes for the door, motioning for Cas to follow with a jerk of his head. “You rest up, man. You still look beat.”

Sam waits for the door to close behind them and lets his head fall back against the pillow. 

Then he starts again from his toes.

 

\----

 

He can’t shake off the feeling. He washes his face a couple dozen times over the next few days, and he does enough of the meditation stuff he’s starting to feel like his ass is welded to the mattress, but he still finds himself thinking about it.

Lucifer kissed his cheek. There didn’t even seem to be any malice in the gesture, though that doesn’t mean Lucifer wasn’t screwing with him on some level. But maybe—maybe he knew. About the whole psychic resonance thing, and the fact that physical contact could set it off. Maybe it was deliberate. 

Cas didn’t say anything about the memories only going one way, after all. If Sam got one of Lucifer’s memories, then maybe—

The box.

 _That_ makes sense. Lucifer’s been haunting Sam one way or another since he was born; the only memories of Sam’s he doesn’t have access to must be the ones from after Amara consumed him. But if he wants whatever’s in the box, he can’t just go on what he already knows. All of Sam’s memories of it are from after Lucifer lost his grace. He must have been hoping to find out where it is, or if Sam knows how to open it.

It’s a good thing Sam knows zilch about it, and that Lucifer’s still on lockdown downstairs. Still, the thought makes Sam unfold himself from the bed, grab his half-drunk mug of coffee off the nightstand, and head to the library to check it’s still locked safely away. He frowns as he takes a sip of cooling coffee. This mug isn’t as big as the one that broke, and the handle feels all wrong. He sets it down on the table in the library.

The box is right where he left it. Out of habit, Sam stares at it for a moment, as though the inscription on the lid might choose now to give up its secrets.

“Had a eureka moment?”

Sam starts at the sound of Dean’s voice, then shakes his head. “Nah. Just, uh. Just taking another look.” He pats the box and slides the drawer shut.

Dean shrugs and picks Sam’s coffee mug up off the table. “Refill?”

“Uh, no. Thanks.” Sam locks the drawer carefully. “I’m just gonna go—take care of something.”

Dean shoots him a puzzled look, but when Sam doesn’t elaborate, he just shakes his head and says, “Man, if that’s a euphemism for you taking a dump, I don’t wanna know.” 

He’s been kind of giving Sam the kid gloves treatment since Cas told them about the whole psychic thing, which should be annoying as hell—but right now, if it means Dean doesn’t ask him any awkward questions, Sam will take it.

Not that he should be avoiding questions. He doesn’t have anything to hide. And if Lucifer did deliberately trigger the whole psychic thing, Sam should be telling Dean and Cas about it, just in case anything else happens. 

It’s just that the whole thing is touchy in ways he’d almost forgotten about. Years have passed since he was the boy with the demon blood, the true vessel; since Lucifer tried convincing him they were two sides of the same coin. Years have passed since Dean looked at him like he was a monster. But this, sharing memories with Lucifer? Some small part of Sam’s brain goes spiraling back there every time Dean mentions the subject, and he can’t get up the courage to bring it up himself.

That, and there’s the kiss thing. 

So he shakes his head, informs Dean, “You’re disgusting,” and ducks out of the room.

In the corridor, he almost runs straight into Cas. Cas seems to have given up on standing sentinel at the dungeon doors full-time, instead wandering round the bunker with that abstracted expression that indicates he’s listening out with angelic senses just in case Lucifer does anything suspicious. Earthly distance supposedly means jack by angel standards, but Sam is pretty sure he’s relieved at not being stuck so close to Lucifer anymore. Even when he was guarding the dungeon full-time, Cas never went inside unless he was delivering food or water, and he never spoke to Lucifer if he could avoid it. 

Sam gets it. Part of him wants to avoid it, too; is thinking about changing his mind even as Cas turns a faint, troubled frown on him and says, “Sam. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah,” he lies. “Better. Thanks.” 

Cas nods. “That’s good.”

Sam manages a smile. “Uh, hey. I guess—” He shoots a glance down the corridor, in the direction that leads to the dungeon. “He didn’t say anything to you, did he? About the whole—” He wiggles his fingers in the direction of his head.

“I’m afraid not.” Cas peers into his face, the frown reappearing. “Why do you ask? Have you had another vision?”

“No.” Sam holds up his hands, as if he can ward off Cas’s concern. “Nothing like that. Just—figured I might as well ask, you know.”

“Of course,” Cas says, not looking convinced.

“Yeah. Anyway, uh, Dean’s in the kitchen. I think he said something about pancakes?”

That gets a mildly interested look. For all that it apparently tastes like molecules, Cas has gotten weirdly attached to Dean’s comfort food. Maybe it has less to do with the food than with the fact that Dean makes it.

“Blueberry?” Cas asks, his expression brightening.

Sam shrugs. “Well hey, if you head in there now, I bet you could persuade him.”

Cas nods. “Thank you, Sam,” he says. “If you have any other visions…”

“I’ll let you know,” Sam promises. He waits for Cas to vanish into the kitchen before he heads downstairs.

 

\----

 

“Aww, Sam. I thought you were never coming back.”

Sam rolls his eyes and secures the dungeon door behind him, taking a moment to steel himself before he turns to face Lucifer. “Well, it isn’t for the pleasure of your company. I have a question.”

“Always with the questions.” Lucifer gives a theatrical sigh. “Honestly, Sam, I’m starting to think maybe you don’t like me.”

Sam doesn’t dignify that with a response. Lucifer just keeps watching him from his chair in the middle of the room, face in shadow.

“I’m surprised, though,” Lucifer goes on, after a second. “From what I overheard, Dean and little Castiel aren’t too keen on letting us be together without a chaperone. They seem to think I did something to you.” He tilts his head into the light, and Sam can’t help sucking in a breath when he sees that Lucifer’s left eye is blacked. The bruise is starting to fade, the swelling gone down, a couple days old. 

Dean must have slugged him; freaked out after Sam had his vision. Sam doesn’t have it in him to feel bad about that, though. Anyway, Lucifer’s still regarding him steadily, eyes like chips of ice.

“Well, did you?” Sam asks.

Lucifer gives him a disbelieving look. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t exactly get out much these days.” He shakes his hands so that the cuffs rattle. “You know they don’t even let me shower unsupervised? And I’m sure Cas is keeping an ear out just in case I sneeze. What could I possibly do to you?”

“Cas told me about the psychic thing. The visions. You made that happen, didn’t you? When you—” Sam breaks off, somehow embarrassed. He waves a hand in the vague direction of his face.

“Always assuming an ulterior motive,” Lucifer says, reproachful. “Every considered that maybe I just like you?”

“No. I really haven’t.”

“Fine.” The eye-rolling act is gone, then: Lucifer looks steadily up at him, face neutral. “Sue me, I was curious. I didn’t know if anything would happen, with me being mortal now, but…”

“You thought it was worth a try anyway, because it might help you get into that box.”

“What?” Lucifer blinks at him, actually looking surprised. “Oh, you think I was trying to find out about… whatever’s in that thing?” He shrugs. “Not that I wouldn’t like to know—curiosity killed the archangel, and all that—but this would be a pretty impractical way of going about it. You don’t get memories to order. It’s a crapshoot, and I don’t have time to go through every argument you’ve ever had with your brother before I get to the good stuff. No, I just wondered if it would work. It’s _boring_ down here.”

Sam looks sharply at him. “Was that what you saw? Me fighting with Dean?”

“Actually, no. Not this time. Be a pretty good bet though, right?”

“So what did you see?” Sam asks, ignoring the jibe.

Lucifer doesn’t answer, just looks at him, considering. 

Of course, refusing to answer questions is the only power he has down here. It was dumb to think this would be any different than the last three times.

“Forget it,” Sam says, and turns for the door.

“I saw the last Trial,” Lucifer says. When Sam turns back to face him, he’s frowning. “Your little attempt at turning Crowley human. Pity you didn’t follow through, by the way. He was a real pain in my ass.”

Sam gives an incredulous little huff. “Yeah, sorry for the inconvenience.”

He’s expecting a smirk, or another smart-ass remark, but he doesn’t get it. Instead, Lucifer shakes his head and says, “I already got the Cliff’s Notes version of that, but I have to say, Sam, the full-color surround-sound director’s cut was something else. Hurt like a bitch, but you just kept at it—at least, until Dean showed up and put the brakes on. And I know, dying to save the world is your thing, but it wasn’t just about saving the world, was it? You really thought you could burn all the demon out of you. Every little thing that made you more than human, everything that connected you to me.” The triumphant little smirk Sam’s expecting at the end of that speech doesn’t come. Lucifer actually sounds more puzzled than anything else. It’s weird.

Sam crosses his arms. “What’s your point?”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow. “Never said I had one. Hey, you asked.” He pauses, looking Sam in the face again. “So, in the spirit of sharing—what’d you see?”

He still isn’t smirking, just watching Sam with a clear-eyed curiosity at odds with the lightness of his tone. 

Sam hesitates a second. His instincts rebel at the idea of giving Lucifer anything—but for once, he can’t see the harm in it. The visions were Lucifer’s memories, so there’s nothing in there he doesn’t already know. And maybe if Lucifer feels like Sam’s giving him something, he’ll be more inclined to share in return. That kind of twisted tit-for-tat might make sense in his mind.

“I saw—light, mostly,” Sam says, after a moment. “Grace, I think. It was being pulled out of me. You, I mean. That hurt like a bitch, too.”

“Huh. You got Auntie eating me for breakfast.” Lucifer makes a face. “Well, that sucks. I almost feel bad.”

Sam resists the urge to snort with mirthless laughter, or to say, _Really, this is where you draw the line?_ Instead, he adds, “There was something else, too.”

Lucifer lifts an eyebrow.

“A voice. It sounded kind of familiar, actually, but I couldn’t place it. She said something about magic. And then she said, _It has to be you_.”

“Hmm.” Lucifer looks down at his hands, meditative. “Yes, she did say that.”

“So are you gonna tell me who she was?” It seems unlikely; Sam’s a little surprised he’s gotten this far without another descent into cryptic bullshit, honestly. 

But Lucifer raises his head and meets Sam’s eyes. “A demon,” he says. “She was supposed to work a tracking spell, help look for my grace. But as you can see, no luck.” 

“Huh.”

“Not a very exciting answer, I know. But it’s the truth. Take it or leave it.”

Sam’s got no reason to trust him. It makes a degree of sense, though. Hell, he’d be more surprised if Lucifer claimed _not_ to have tried getting his grace back before he showed up at the bunker. And if there’s more to the story, he clearly isn’t getting it today. Perhaps baby steps are the best he can hope for.

So he nods. “Okay.”

“What, no _stop lying you lying liar?_ ”

It’s Sam’s turn to roll his eyes. “You say that like it’s an unfair assessment. But no. Not today.”

Lucifer shrugs, and then the smirk is back. “I guess a kiss goodbye is too much to ask for?”

Clearly, the useful part of the conversation is at an end. Sam lets himself out of the dungeon and closes the door behind him.

 

\----

 

Strangely enough, Sam feels steadier, after that. He doesn’t mention the conversation to Dean or Cas, but he doesn’t have any more visions, and he doesn’t feel the need to do the meditation thing for the rest of the day.

He finds himself picturing Lucifer’s frown, when he talked about the last Trial. Remembering what he said about it: _The full-color, surround-sound director’s cut is something else_. How surprised he looked.

That might be the closest he’s ever come to admitting that he doesn’t know Sam like he thought; that Sam is his own creature, not some Xerox copy of Lucifer’s story.

Sam’s in the TV room, almost ready to head to bed, when Dean appears in the doorway, distractedly stuffing his cell phone into his pocket.

“Everything okay?” Sam asks.

“Awesomesauce.” Dean grimaces. “Crowley got a lead on who this New Queen of Hell chick is.”

Sam sits up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, and I’ll give you a clue: it starts with ‘R’ and ends with ‘Giant pile of mommy issues’.”

“Rowena.” Sam makes a face. Then he pauses. “But Lucifer killed her.”

“Well, apparently it didn’t take much time downstairs for her to earn her novelty contact lenses.”

“Great.” Sam feels a pit in his stomach, the relative calm he’s been feeling since this morning draining away. 

Lucifer said the chick from the vision was a demon. There’s no way his minion didn’t tell him Rowena was running for president. He must’ve known.

Not that there was ever any possibility they could trust him—but if he’s lying about this, it’s because he’s up to something. Sam feels something solidify inside of him, a cold weight behind his sternum. He isn’t sure if it’s anger or fear.

“Anyway,” Dean says. “We got nothing on her whereabouts right now. Crowley’s gonna give me a call if there’s news.” He rolls his shoulders and winces. “I’m gonna crash out. You should get some shuteye too. You need it.”

Sam forces a smile. “Yeah,” he says. “In a minute.”

Dean’s footsteps retreat down the corridor. Sam stays where he is, switching the TV off after he realizes he’s paying no attention to the show. He ends up pouring himself a drink from the liquor cabinet, hoping it will calm him enough to make him sleepy.

It doesn’t. Instead, he sits up restless as the minutes tick by; pours himself another, and another.

He was dumb to think he was getting somewhere with Lucifer. He should’ve known better. That’s just what Lucifer does—feeds him dribs and drabs of truth and never tells the whole of it. And now he’s invited himself into Sam’s memories without asking, and Sam was so grateful it wasn’t anything worse he just… let Lucifer get away with it.

He swallows and sets down his glass, a half-inch of bourbon still swirling in the bottom of it. 

Then he heads for the dungeon.


	6. Chapter 6

He hesitates before he makes it to the doors, turns back around and heads for the communal area. There’s faint, tinny noise coming from the kitchen, a thin glow creeping out around the edges of the door.

Cas is sitting at the table, Sam’s laptop in front of him. Apparently he hasn’t quite kicked the Netflix habit yet. 

He looks up when Sam opens the door. “Sam. Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine. Just, uh, not tired yet, I guess.” 

“Dean told you about Rowena?”

“Yeah.” Sam pauses, frowning. “Listen, Cas—you know you’re doing the whole listening out with angel senses thing?” He jerks his chin downward, as if Cas needs to be reminded that this is about Lucifer.

“Yes?”

“You mind not doing it, for a little while?”

Cas stands up and takes a step toward him, a concerned furrow appearing between his brows. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“I know, it’s just—” Sam scrubs a hand down his face. “There are a couple things I need to ask. Ask him, I mean. And it’d be easier if I didn’t have an audience—at least, not an audience I like.”

Cas is still frowning, but he doesn’t argue. Maybe he figures Sam’s talking about something that happened while he was possessed. He can probably relate to that.

“I’ll pray to you,” he presses. “If anything goes sideways, I’ll pray to you. You know how me and Dean have our go word, Poughkeepsie? You hear that, you know it’s time to run downstairs and save my ass.”

After a moment, Cas nods. “If anything seems suspicious,” he says, “or if you have another vision—”

“You’ll know about it,” Sam promises.

“Very well.” Cas still looks pretty doubtful, but he goes back to his chair. Sam slips out of the kitchen and closes the door behind him.

 

\----

 

His anger slides back into focus as he heads down the corridor. He hasn’t drunk enough to make his head fuzzy: he’s just at the stage where it makes you feel raw, gives a sharp edge to all the things you were already feeling.

He’s been so intent on keeping his cool and not letting Lucifer get to him; so certain that if he loses it again, he’ll be walking into a trap. And maybe that’s true. Lucifer’s playing some game, showing up here, and the Rowena thing just proves it. Human or not, somewhere deep down, Sam’s still afraid of him.

Maybe he shouldn’t be. Or at least, maybe he shouldn’t be letting his fear paralyze him. Right now, Lucifer’s less powerful than he’s ever been. Eating, sleeping, bruising when Sam hit him—all the disadvantages of being human, even if the mind in there is still alien.

There’s something freeing in the idea of just going with it. Surging forward instead of struggling to stand his ground. Letting himself actually be pissed off, instead of doing the sensible thing and tucking it away for another day, a better, safer day that’s never gonna come. Not worrying about who he might hurt with it, because Lucifer at a disadvantage is still Lucifer. When he pictures that bland mask of innocence, Sam finds it difficult to imagine that anything could actually hurt him, that there’s anything in there capable of feeling human pain. 

Sam probably isn’t gonna get anything more out of him than he has before. He gets that. He’s pissed enough to try anyway.

He flicks on the light inside the dungeon without giving a warning. It’s bright enough that it hurts his eyes after the hours he’s spent sitting in the dark, and he blinks hard as Lucifer stirs.

Lucifer rubs his eyes with the hand that isn’t cuffed to the frame of the cot, uncurling sleepily. A little smile appears on his face when his eyes land on Sam—not exactly friendly, but not exactly malicious, either. Apparently he hasn’t noticed the set of Sam’s jaw, the tension in his shoulders.

“Booty call?” he says. “I know I’m not what you call a relationship expert, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to text first.”

“ _Shut up_.” It bursts out of Sam before he has time to think about it—and apparently it takes Lucifer by surprise too, because he actually does as he’s told, eyes going wide, sitting back a little. 

There’s a power in seeing that minute reaction, in knowing he caused it. Knowing that even if he is walking into some trap, Lucifer doesn’t have his number, not completely.

It’s dangerous to think like that. Since the day he took out Lilith and set Lucifer free, Sam’s been wary of anything that feels powerful. It’s deceptive, easily pressed into the service of monsters. 

Except that the biggest monster of them all is sitting in front of him right now, and he’s flesh and blood, and the only power he has left is telling lies. At least Lilith and Alastair were honest about what they were. Lucifer’s been sitting there acting like he’s some hapless know-nothing human since he showed up here. Maybe, if he wants to play human, he should have to learn that being human means not being the chessmaster, not pulling all the strings, not knowing what’s going to happen next. 

Sam stalks toward the cot, stopping just a little too close, resisting the instinctual urge to make himself small and letting himself stand at his full height. 

Lucifer raises his eyebrows, the brief look of surprise vanished. “Now,” he says. “I’m not claiming to be psychic here, but—” He wiggles his fingers. “—something’s telling me I’m not on your Christmas card list right now.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what happens when you lie to people.”

“Lie?” Lucifer looks offended. 

“Don’t.” Sam keeps his voice level, cold. “There’s no way you didn’t know about Rowena.” And there it is: the flicker of recognition in Lucifer’s eyes. “Don’t find some loophole and tell me that means you weren’t lying. I asked, and you said—what was it? _I’m not up to date on the gossip_. But you spoke to that demon who was helping you look for your grace. Do you seriously expect me to believe she didn’t tell you who was after your throne?”

“Okay, so I had my suspicions. It isn’t like any names were exchanged.”

“You had your suspicions,” Sam says, flatly. “And you didn’t think they were worth mentioning when I asked you about it?”

Lucifer eyes him sharply. “And if I’d been wrong?” he asks. “Would you have believed it was an honest mistake?”

“There’s nothing honest about you.”

“And there it is. Guilty until proven innocent.”

Sam clenches his hands into fists. “Don’t you dare put this on me,” he says. “You’ve been playing with me my whole _life_. Don’t you dare act like I’m supposed to trust you.”

“Hey, I never said that.” Lucifer’s giving him that faux-innocent look again. “It’s kinda pointless though, right? You showing up here, giving me the third degree, when you’ve already decided you don’t believe the answers.”

“Yeah, well believing you would be a hell of a lot stupider.”

Lucifer’s quiet for a moment, regarding him with pale, piercing eyes. Then he says, “I’ve got an idea,” and he reaches out with his free hand. His right hand. He uses it to take Sam’s left, to turn it palm-up and rub his thumb in a circle over Sam’s palm. When he encounters the fading line of scar tissue he tilts his head a little, curious. 

Sam goes still where he stands. He forgets to loom, and he even forgets to pull his hand away. When he opens his mouth he finds his throat has gone dry. He swallows.

“What are you doing?”

Lucifer just looks at him, one corner of his mouth twitching up in a half-smile. He isn’t smirking like he does when something amuses him, though. There’s something inscrutable about it. “Physical contact,” he says. “Helps trigger the visions, and the visions go both ways. You want to know you can believe me? This is how.”

Belatedly, Sam snatches his hand back. He holds it against his chest, curled into a fist. “You said it was a crapshoot,” he points out.

Lucifer inclines his head. “There is that. But hey, if I’m lying to you about something, there’s no guarantee that you _won’t_ see it. It’s in my interest to tell you the truth.”

He shifts a little, then, up toward the head of the cot, making room for somebody else to sit beside him. The blanket slides off of his lap, and Sam sees that his feet are bare on the floor.

Lucifer doesn’t seem bothered by the cold. He keeps his eyes on Sam; gestures at the space beside him, the movement aborted by the handcuffs.

Sam watches him carefully, eyes narrowed, still cradling his hand against his chest. He doesn’t need anybody to remind him that this is a bad idea, but there’s something reckless still beating in his chest, mixed up with the anger and the raw edges and the memories that scratch at the back of his brain each time anything touches that scar. 

He sits down.

Lucifer turns his head, eyes fixed on Sam’s profile. It’s discomfiting, being watched like that without a full view of the creature staring at him, so Sam has to turn to face him, too, putting their faces a little too close together.

That opaque smile again. Sam imagines punching it right off Lucifer’s face. Tells himself that maybe he’ll let himself, later. Slowly, Lucifer reaches for his hand again.

Sam freezes, pulling it back in close to his chest. After a second, he offers the other one instead. Lucifer shrugs and takes it.

They sit, breathing in the silence, and Sam waits for it. The dizziness, the blurred vision, the tearing rush of light. It doesn’t come.

He waits, and it doesn’t come. He pulls his hand away.

“It isn’t working.” 

“Looks that way,” Lucifer agrees.

“Why? What did you do?”

“Sam.” It’s chiding, but not angry. “I want this to work as much as you do.” Lucifer’s eyes bore into him. This close up, there are colors in them. The wintry pale blue of a January sky; the slate gray of a stormy sea. Cold things, Sam reminds himself. Cold, inhuman things. 

“So why won’t it?”

Lucifer looks thoughtful. “Maybe we’ve built up an immunity,” he suggests. “Maybe it’s gonna take a little more, this time.”

“A little more what?”

In answer, Lucifer raises Sam’s hand to his mouth. He holds it there for a moment, watching Sam’s face, and Sam’s self-preservation instincts don’t kick in before he brushes his lips over Sam’s knuckles. 

It’s barely a touch, but Sam feels like he’s been stung. He pulls his hand away. “What the—you can’t seriously think I’d do that.” He swallows hard, heart thudding in his chest. “With you.”

Lucifer gives a small, one-shouldered shrug, the little half-smile reappearing. “Hey, if it works…”

“No. No. After everything you did—you think I’d touch you? Like that?”

“I’ve done you harm. I understand that.” No attempt at an apology. Sam’s grateful for that, at least. “But I came to you, and however many times you walk out that door, you keep on coming back to me. You say we’re not the same, Sam, but if we aren’t, then we’re like the opposite poles of a magnet.” He raises his free hand to the chained one; brings them together, fingers interlocking. “Just can’t stay away from each other, can we?” His gaze is unblinking. 

Sam takes a steadying breath; waits for the inevitable taunt. That’s usually how these little speeches end.

It doesn’t come. Instead, Lucifer leans in toward him again. This time, Sam doesn’t pull away. He’s frozen in place, though right now he isn’t sure whether he’s a stone wall or a rabbit hypnotized by a snake.

“It isn’t just you, you know,” Lucifer says, close enough that Sam can feel his breath. “It never was.”

Sam gives a strangled laugh. He should say something. Like, _Yeah, I figured that out back when you started stalking my dreams_ , or, _Is that what you call it, what you did to me in Hell? Couldn’t stay away until there was nothing left of me?_

“It’s always been true,” Lucifer tells him. “You know that as well as I do. Whatever we’re meant to be—and hey, I’m not saying that I know—” He makes a vague gesture with his free hand. “—we’re meant to be _something_.”

“Really?” Sam gets out. “I thought you hopped off the destiny train a while back. Like when you left your brother in the Cage and lied to me and Cas to get out of there, and then threatened _my_ brother so you could ride around in my skin again.”

A muscle twitches in Lucifer’s jaw, and Sam’s surprised—at getting any reaction, really. But he’s wound up tight himself, and when he looks down he realizes his hands are clasped so tightly the knuckles are white, like he’s praying. Or like he’s trying to hold onto himself.

“Believe it or not, it’s the truth,” Lucifer tells him. Sam thinks he means for it to sound lighter than it does.

“Yeah, I don’t,” he says. 

He’s still here, though. He does keep coming back, like Lucifer said. And his dreams are full of memories that aren’t his own.

It’s like Lucifer can see him thinking it. He seems to relax, raising his free hand like he’s about to reach for Sam again, satisfaction breaking through the opaque expression. Sam gets that bug under a microscope feeling again, like he’s some experiment that’s just done exactly what Lucifer was predicting. Like he’s something small and easily squashed.

His chest tightens with anger. No. Lucifer can’t hurt him anymore. He might be alien on the inside, but in the flesh, he’s just a man.

Sam wants Lucifer to stop looking at him like that.

No: Sam wants to make him stop.

He squares his shoulder and stops shrinking away. Doing that feels too familiar anyway, too much like he felt in that cell in Limbo, like he did for all those years in the Cage, backed into a corner in the dark. He leans forward instead, so that this time he’s the one invading Lucifer’s space. Puts all the menace he’s learned in years of looming over uncooperative monsters to work. Maybe he can remind Lucifer that he doesn’t have all the cards here.

Lucifer doesn’t back off, his satisfied expression turns into something else. Impressed, maybe. But not intimidated. More like Sam’s passed some kind of test.

And that’s infuriating as hell, because it’s still Lucifer setting himself up like he gets to be judge and jury, and Sam feels his anger again, that cold weight in his chest twisting, turning into something hot and dark.

“You know what I think?” he says. “I think you jumped back on the destiny train when you woke up human because it’s the only thing you have left. The demons were never gonna follow you once they realized how weak you are.” He punctuates it with a shove that slams Lucifer back against the head of the cot, and that actually does seem to take him by surprise, at least for a moment. “I don’t think anybody’s saving you a seat upstairs. And you never learned to survive in the human world like Cas did, because you thought you were so much better than us. Now you’re one of us, and you’re acting all coy about the things you know, trying to get under my skin again, because you think that’ll stop us from taking you out.” Sam reaches for a cool-headedness he doesn’t feel; a steely purpose he hasn’t needed to draw on since he got the Mark off of Dean. “Maybe I should show you that isn’t true.”

For once, Lucifer doesn’t have an answer ready right off the bat. He’s breathing hard, and he straightens up with a wince, taking a second to compose himself.

But he does compose himself. And when he raises his head to meet Sam’s eyes again, he looks as certain as he ever has. As certain as he looked back when he escaped the first time around, when Sam thought he at least believed what he was saying. When Sam didn’t want to believe they were the same, but a sorrowful little part of him couldn’t help thinking that maybe, somehow, they were.

“You won’t kill me,” Lucifer tells him. “You want to know what happens next.” He frowns, meditative. “So do I, actually. And sure, you could shoot me in the head right here, but then neither of us would ever know. We’re curious creatures. We couldn’t deal with that.”

Sam’s fingernails dig into his palms. “There isn’t a _we_.”

Lucifer just looks at him—mild and unruffled, like he’s humoring a small child. “Of course there is,” he says. “There will be. Because everything you just said? That’s why you’re going to take up my offer.”

“An offer’s when you give somebody something they want,” Sam points out. “This is—the opposite of that.”

“Is it, though?” Lucifer says, still perfectly calm. “You think you’ve got my number, and here’s your chance to know for sure. And maybe get a little payback in the process.”

“Payback?” Sam echoes, stupidly.

“We’re vengeful, too, Sam, me and you. Whatever anyone else tells you, that isn’t wrong. After everything—well, here’s your opportunity. It’s only natural that you’d want to take it.”

“Like I told you,” Sam says, “there isn’t a _we_. You don’t have a clue what I want—you don’t understand anything.”

Because how could there ever be any payback? For the years and the death and the demon blood, the wreckage of whatever dreams of normal life he once had? For the months that felt like decades in the Cage. For how it felt to be a tiny scrap of soul-stuff subject to the whims of something ancient and terrible, buffeted by forces he couldn’t even start to comprehend? Being human, being helpless—there’s no way Lucifer understands what that means.

Maybe that’s why he’s offering.

He inches along the cot, toward Sam again. Pauses to roll his shoulders as best he can, still cuffed to the frame, and winces a little when something pops. He keeps his eyes on Sam’s face, and just for half a second, there’s something there that looks like caution.

He might not be able to understand human pain, but he can still feel it. Sam could make him understand.

Then the thought gets chased right out of Sam’s head, then, because Lucifer leans back into his space, a tickle of breath against his lips, and says, “I know what it felt like, you know. For you. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to turn the tables.” 

And with the proximity, and the fact that they’re sitting side by side on a bed—or the dungeon’s best excuse for one, anyway—and the memory of that unasked-for kiss still embedded in Sam’s skin like a burn, there’s no mistaking what he’s talking about. Sam shifts uncomfortably. His brain shies away from the word, always has, but there’s really no other way to translate what happened in the Cage into human experience. The memory of something vast and cold and alien intruding into the core of him and slicing apart what it found there with methodical precision. Like being dissected by light.

Sam never called it _rape_ , because that sounded too physical, too literal. But his subconscious did. His subconscious called it that wearing the same face he’s looking at now.

“I wouldn’t stop you,” Lucifer says, very softly. Sam isn’t sure whether it’s a taunt or an invitation.

He thinks maybe Lucifer isn’t sure, either, because there’s something guarded in the way he looks at Sam now. Something that hasn’t been there since he showed up. For the very first time, he doesn’t look like he’s in control.

Something at the core of Sam says, _good_. 

Lucifer shouldn’t be in control right now. He should be afraid for his life, for the soul that might be in there somewhere. He should know fear like Sam’s known fear. He should know what it’s like to be helpless.

Sam’s hand moves almost independently of his brain. He grabs Lucifer by the arm and yanks him back in, the handcuffs jangling as their chain stretches to its full extent. It goes against long-held instincts, pulling the Devil close instead of pushing him away and running, but Sam’s angry enough not to heed them. To take satisfaction in the brief second of resistance he feels before Lucifer goes with the motion; the way he looks up at Sam through his pale eyelashes, like he’s trying to read him, no longer sure of where this is going.

Sam waits. Lucifer meets his eyes again, soon enough; lifts his chin, something a little like challenge in the gesture. 

“Is this supposed to make anything better?” Sam asks him, then. “You think you can—what, make us even? Is that it?”

There’s a beat before Lucifer answers. “I guess not,” he says. And then, “I still wouldn’t stop you.”

This time, it’s definitely a challenge. 

That’s what does it, in the end. That’s what makes Sam break. He needs to smash the façade, one way or another. He needs to get to the truth—a truth, any truth. 

He keeps his grip tight on the handcuffs, so that Lucifer couldn’t pull away from him even if he changed his mind. He screws up his courage against the voice in the back of his head yelling, _this is the worst idea you’ve ever had_ , and he kisses the Devil full on the mouth.

It’s messy, punishing, teeth clashing. Lucifer makes a small, startled noise in the back of his throat, and Sam feels a little flare of triumph, like he has the upper hand at last—or at least, like Lucifer doesn’t. 

But it doesn’t last. Lucifer goes with it, opens to it, lets Sam kiss him hard enough to bruise, the surprised noise giving way to a satisfied hum. It isn’t what Sam wants, this easy acquiescence. It spurs him on to deepen the kiss, to push his tongue into Lucifer’s unresisting mouth, bite at his lips and curl a hand around the base of his skull, gripping the short hair there tight enough it has to hurt.

That gets him a sharp little intake of breath. When he pulls back, Lucifer’s mouth is red, his eyes wide, and he’s breathing hard. For a moment, Sam thinks that maybe, maybe, Lucifer wasn’t actually expecting his bluff to be called. 

Or maybe he just wasn’t expecting to feel it. He’s only been without his powers a few weeks, and he probably doesn’t have a frame of reference for this stuff, really. Sam wouldn’t touch another human being like this—not one who might never have fucked anybody before, anyway.

He feels a flicker of trepidation—but then Lucifer licks his lips, tilts his head and says, “Having second thoughts?” and he stamps it out.

He tightens his grip in Lucifer’s hair. “If you are going to stop me,” he says, “do it now.” His voice comes out low and ragged, almost a growl, and for a moment Lucifer still looks like he’s wandered off the map, unsure of where to turn next.

Then he shakes his head, turns piercing eyes on Sam. “I said I wouldn’t. And I _wasn’t_ lying.” Like he still thinks he has some claim to being the truth-sayer here. 

Instead of smacking him in the face, Sam kisses him again.

He’s no gentler than he was the last time. Again, Lucifer goes with it, undemanding, obedient. It’s only when Sam bites off a groan of frustration that he takes the hint and kisses back, lips sliding against Sam’s, an experimental little flick of tongue. His free hand finds Sam’s wrist and holds on tight, fingertips digging in with human desperation instead of angelic strength.

It’s all a little more like fucking than fighting, and that isn’t what this was supposed to be about. 

Sam doesn’t think that’s what this was supposed to be about.

He dips his head, tugs at the neck of Lucifer’s t-shirt to expose a stretch of pale skin and presses his mouth to Lucifer’s neck, sucking a bruise into the skin. The way Lucifer’s breath catches in his chest, eyes squeezing shut, mouth falling open in surprise, is a shot of gratification. One that makes Sam’s cock give a half-awake twitch in his boxers, and that’s kind of a surprise, because half of his brain is still telling him he shouldn’t be going through with this—and anyway, it wasn’t supposed to be a sex thing, it’s a revenge thing dressed up as a sex thing. Or a getting-a-straight-answer-out-of-Lucifer thing, or a getting-this-whole-mess-out-of-his-system-thing.

Only all of it is kind of tangled up together, now, and Sam isn’t sure he could untangle it if he tried, or what he would do with it if he could. So he doesn’t. He kisses his way down Lucifer’s skin, leaving red marks on the curve of his neck that are gonna turn purple later. Evidence that he isn’t in control here, not for this moment. Evidence that Sam got under _his_ skin for once, made him lose his stupid infuriating cool. Right now, his other hand is straining against the handcuffs, fingers twitching like he wants to reach out for Sam. There’s a dark little kernel of satisfaction in knowing that he can’t. 

Sam pulls back a moment, then shifts them both down, using his weight to pin Lucifer to the narrow mattress, caging him in with his arms. Lucifer’s eyes fly open, and there’s just a second where Sam feels him go tense, tugging at the handcuff keeping him fastened to the bedframe, giving an aborted twist of his hips, like he wants to throw Sam off of him. He reins it in, though, looking right up into Sam’s eyes. “I thought we were never gonna get anywhere,” he drawls.

A ridiculous thought strikes Sam. That defiant look, barely holding up—it’s a little like Dean when they’re trapped and it looks like they’re finally about to screw the pooch, doubling down on the antagonism because he’s more afraid of looking afraid than of becoming monster chow.

But Sam isn’t the monster in this equation. The only monster in this room is the one trapped underneath him, looking up at him with a human face he has no right to.

He sinks back down to kiss the smirk off Lucifer’s face, shoves hands up under the hem of his t-shirt to rake bitten-off fingernails down his sides. Lucifer hisses, arches up off the cot. It’s hard to tell whether he’s trying to get away from the touch or press himself closer to Sam. 

Sam is making him feel _something_ , though. Maybe for the first time in this relationship, Sam isn’t a receptacle, isn’t a chew-toy or a piece being pushed around a chessboard. He might actually have the upper hand.

And he wants to see the evidence. He tugs at the hem of Lucifer’s t-shirt, yanks it up over his head. Lucifer helps, wriggles out of it as best he can, so it ends up hanging awkwardly off the arm that’s still cuffed to the cot frame. His free hand plucks at the hem of Sam’s Henley.

There’s a small, sweet rush of power in telling him, “No.” Sam tugs Lucifer’s hand away, pins it to the mattress beside his head.

Lucifer looks up at him with that familiar angelic head-tilt, shades of curiosity alongside the disappointment in his face. He doesn’t get to ask his question, though, because Sam gets back to work, raking his fingernails across the marks he already left. 

He does it again, and again, leans down to press more bite-marks along Lucifer’s collarbone, to roll the unprotected nub of a nipple between his teeth. That gets a little cry of pain, loud in the echoing dungeon before Lucifer bites it off and swallows it down.

Sam doesn’t let up. He turns his attention to the other nipple, digs his nails in again, keeps it up until he hears Lucifer’s breathing turn quick and ragged. No more crying out, just a soft grunt on every exhale of what might be pain or pleasure or some combination of the two. 

He leans back again, taking in his handiwork. The bruises blooming along Lucifer’s collarbone; the thin red streaks on skin that’s probably never seen the sun. Unmistakable evidence that Sam has gotten to him, in whatever insignificant little way this is. That he didn’t get to show up here and screw with Sam’s head again and walk away unscathed.

He has his head thrown back, tendons straining, eyes screwed tightly shut. Sam can see the jump of the pulse at his throat. His free hand is fisted in the sheets, knuckles white. He looks totally lost, caught up in the moment. Maybe not in a good way.

This is _Lucifer_ , Sam reminds himself. This is the creature that had Sam’s life marked for destruction before he was ever born, that wanted to wreck the world wearing his face, that could’ve shredded him with a thought and sometimes did, in the Cage. Just because Lucifer is de-angeled right now doesn’t make him a human being.

Even so, Sam feels the stab of something nauseous in the pit of his stomach, something that makes him waver. He can’t bring himself to be gentle, so he shakes Lucifer by his shoulder—and when that doesn’t work, slaps the side of his face, hard enough to startle, not to hurt. 

Lucifer’s eyes snap open. He looks up at Sam, a little wild-eyed, and Sam finds himself opening and closing his mouth like a grade-A idiot, not sure what he intended to say.

“Sam,” Lucifer gasps, and then he stops himself, taking deep, shuddery breaths, gathering his composure. His gaze narrows. “What’s wrong?” he says. “Aren’t we having fun yet?”

Those words thrown back at him call up long-ago echoes, kill whatever burgeoning regret he was feeling stone dead. A memory of blood on his knuckles. Lucifer using his hands to tear demons limb from limb and calling it a gift, while Sam, trapped in his own head, screamed and beat his fists against the glass.

“This isn’t supposed to be fun,” he growls, and before he really knows what he’s doing, his hands are around Lucifer’s throat.

There’s something dizzying about feeling the shift of tendon and muscle under his hands, the bob of Lucifer’s Adam’s apple as he gulps for air. How fragile a part of the human body this is.

 _I could hurt you_ , Sam thinks, and the realization is like something long-lost falling into place—or like some long-held burden finally set down. _I could choke the life out of you right here. I could finally kill the Devil and never have to fear you again_. At last, at last, it’s in his hands.

Lucifer’s free hand pushes at him, ineffectual. He’s struggling for breath, turning red in the face, and there’s a flash of honest-to-God panic in his eyes.

Sam pulls his hands away like he’s been burned.

They just stare at each other, breathing hard in the silence. Lucifer blinks, the panic on his face draining away, leaving behind a relief that’s too raw to be anything but real.

Sam doesn’t let himself dwell on the thought, afraid of the satisfaction he might find in it. Instead, he shakes himself back into the moment, makes himself focus on the way Lucifer’s hand is tugging at the neck of his Henley, not pushing him away anymore. He lets himself be pulled back down; lets Lucifer’s breath ghost over his lips as he says, voice rough, “Sam. I didn’t—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Sam tells him, and kisses him again instead of listening to whatever he has to say. That seems safer, somehow.

It’s no gentler than before, but this time, it feels like mercy instead of punishment, and Sam realizes he’s really going to do this. He’s going to do it because if he doesn’t, he might kill Lucifer right here with his bare hands. Maybe that shouldn’t be such a bad thing, but instinct tells him if he does it, he’ll be proving Lucifer right. And once he’s done that—well, then, he’s definitely damned.

He distracts his hands with leaving more scratch marks, with finding Lucifer’s hips and holding him down hard enough to bruise as he presses their bodies together. The flush of heat that runs through him might be anger or desire. He isn’t sure, right now, where the line is, or if it even exists anymore. He does know that he’s hard as a rock in his sweatpants; that when he shifts his weight, he can feel the stirrings of an erection against Lucifer’s thigh. The Devil isn’t too afraid to want him, at least. His hand is curled around the back of Sam’s neck now, fingers in his hair, clutching tight.

Sam used to feel this way with Ruby, sometimes. Messed up by all of it, not sure if he really wanted her or if he was making himself want her to keep from wanting something worse, from taking a knife to her jugular and draining every drop of blood. 

That thought alone should be enough to make him stop and run, but he’s in this, now, still afraid he might do something worse if he lets himself hesitate. So he doesn’t. He palms Lucifer’s cock through the sweatpants he’s still wearing, just long enough to tease, to make him squirm under Sam’s weight and give a low, needy sound that gets swallowed up in Sam’s mouth. Whatever they’re doing here doesn’t have much to do with pleasure but the sensation is under Sam’s skin, thrumming in his veins, urgent and unstoppable as falling. He needs to feel Lucifer come apart under his hands. Flesh and blood, human and breakable, and maybe it doesn’t much matter if it’s pleasure or pain that does the breaking. Either way, he’s in Sam’s hands.

There’s a click as the handcuffs catch on the bedframe again, Lucifer making an aborted move to reach out to him. His free hand rakes through Sam’s hair, slides over his shoulders, his chest, dips down between them as Lucifer tries to touch himself. 

No, Sam decides. This isn’t how it’s gonna go. He pulls himself away—more difficult than it should be, somehow—and finds his way to the door. The key to the handcuffs is on one of the shelves outside, and he opens the door just a crack and gropes for it. Lucifer blinks, composing himself, taking a moment to focus in on what Sam’s doing. He looks surprised again when Sam unfastens the cuff from the cot frame, curling his arm in toward his body and wiggling his fingers like he has cramp. It’s such a normal gesture. Such a human one.

Sam shakes the thought away, shakes his head. Reaches out to take Lucifer’s hands in his own. They’re warm, unsteady in his own. Lucifer’s fingers curl through his own, fingertip callouses brushing the backs of his hands. Their previous owner must’ve worked with his hands, played guitar, something.

You can tell a lot about somebody from their hands. Or you should be able to, anyway.

Lucifer doesn’t protest when Sam snaps the cuff around his other wrist, so both hands are fastened in front of him. Sam half expects another dig, a “Kinky” and a smirk or a raised eyebrow, but it doesn’t come. The only sound he makes is a sigh of relief when Sam presses him back into the mattress, his legs shifting apart to let Sam settle between them.

Sam lets himself get lost in it. The press of their bodies, how they move against each other, hard and urgent. The anger that burns through him settling into something simple, physical. For a moment it’s just the heat and the friction, the sharp ache of arousal that isn’t about having fun, just taking the edge off because it hurts. 

Plus the satisfaction of making Lucifer gasp his name with a roll of his hips, turning the word into a sob with a press of his teeth. There’s that, too.

It isn’t enough—not for long. Lucifer’s clutching handfuls of his t-shirt, hands resting over his heart, and Sam pries them away, growling, “Turn over.”

Lucifer’s eyes widen, a brief flash of uncertainty before the shutters go back down and he does as he’s bid. 

_I wouldn’t stop you_ , Sam hears, inside his head, and some too-soft part of his mind points out that that isn’t the same as _I want this_.

He shuts it down. His _yes_ never meant _I want this_ , either, and that didn’t mean jack to Lucifer.

He leans in, drapes himself over Lucifer’s back, lips hovering at the curve of his neck like he’s about to press a kiss there. Then he bites down, and Lucifer groans and pushes back against him, his ass grinding against Sam’s crotch through the thin fabric of their sweatpants. He lets Sam mark him up, bite marks across his shoulders, red welts down his back, pressing back into him with moans only just the right side of pained. When Sam hooks fingers under the waistband of his sweatpants, he lifts his hips to help Sam yank them out the way, leaving them somewhere down around his knees.

Sam has to stop to take it in, then. He has the Devil naked underneath him—naked and wrecked, looking back over his shoulder, those pale eyes dark with some unidentifiable emotion. Something Sam made him feel. The creature that haunted his nightmares for so long at his mercy, right here in the real world.

The thought pulls a growl from him. He gets his pants out the way and wraps a hand around his cock, stroking himself, slow and firm.

He isn’t exactly prepared for this. It isn’t like he knew where things were going when he came down here. And he can hardly go running around the bunker hunting for lube with Dean and Cas here.

But he can make do. And Lucifer—well, he can either do this Sam’s way, or not at all.

Sam spits in his palm. Lucifer’s eyes follow the movement as he slicks himself up as best he can, but he doesn’t object. (Hell, maybe he doesn’t _know_ to object, and if this were anybody else that would be a reason to stop, but it can’t be, not now.) He shifts under Sam, spreading his legs as far as he can manage with his pants still around his knees, and Sam lowers himself down and presses forward and inside. And Lucifer—he doesn’t cry out, exactly, but he makes this ragged, broken sound that’s too loud for the echoing basement, or for a bunker with Dean and Cas in it. 

Sam slaps a hand over his mouth. He holds himself still, struggling with it because it almost hurts, Lucifer falling apart under him with fast, stuttery little breaths.

“Be _quiet_ ,” Sam gets out, once he’s gotten himself under control. “You don’t want my brother walking in here any more than I do.”

Maybe it’s some vestige of that legendary pride, because Lucifer nods and Sam feels him fight to control himself, breathing in slow, eyes closing.

Sam doesn’t let him. He pulls out and then slams back in, hard enough that stars dance behind his eyelids. Lucifer sags beneath him, like all the breath has been knocked out of him. That’s all, though. He lets it happen, lets Sam fuck him into the mattress, one hand still clamped over his mouth. 

The quiet in the dungeon is brutal. There’s nothing but the slap of flesh against flesh, the sound of their breathing, harsh and unsteady and too loud. There’s no escaping any of this, raw and physical and too intimate for them. How little it’s got to do with pleasure, let alone love.

It doesn’t last long. Sam doesn’t hold back, doesn’t try to make it last like he might if he was just fucking somebody instead of punishing them. He pushes in deep when he comes, rhythm faltering as he spills his load, Lucifer’s teeth digging into the meat of his palm.

 

\----

 

He feels lighter, afterward. Just for a moment. 

Maybe it’s just physical release, a hormone thing, but it feels like the complicated knot of feelings that’s built up inside him since Lucifer showed up here has loosened itself. Like he’s gotten through the woods and come out the other side.

Except that the body beneath him is shaking, just a little. And when he pulls away, there’s blood.

Just like that, the knot in the pit of his stomach is back. 

Sam unfolds himself to sit at the foot of the cot. As far away as he can get without actually standing up and running.

His sweatpants are still down around his hips. Mechanically, he reaches down and tucks himself back in.

He throws a glance at Lucifer. Lucifer hasn’t moved, still face-down on the cot, hands trapped underneath him in what must be a hell of an uncomfortable position. He rolls onto his side, curling in on himself a little, a movement that looks instinctual more than deliberate. When he looks at Sam, his expression is unreadable.

“What?” he says. “No cuddle?”

It’s weak, his voice still rough from when Sam almost throttled him, and he isn’t even trying to smirk. Sam still can’t read his face. His wrists are rubbed raw from the handcuffs. 

For some reason, that’s what does it. 

Sam swallows hard. “Come here,” he says, and reaches out to pull Lucifer into a sitting position.

Lucifer stiffens at his touch, but doesn’t flinch. He watches Sam fumble the key to the handcuffs out of his sweatpants pocket, brows furrowing in confusion when Sam unlocks them and pulls them off altogether.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Sam shakes his head, not trusting himself to find an answer that won’t sound totally deranged. “Stay here,” he says, instead, and bolts out of the dungeon.

He leaves the handcuffs on the table. They’re still there when he comes back maybe ten minutes later, and so is Lucifer, perched on the edge of the cot and looking down at his own hands like they don’t belong to him. He looks up at the sound of the door, a beat too quickly to be casual.

“You came back.”

Sam doesn’t have it in him to brush it off, to do a Dean and come out with something like, _Yeah, well, I’m the host with the most_. Instead he just nods dumbly, and sets down the load he’s carrying on the table. Soap—the chemical-smelling kind from the communal bathroom, strong enough to cover up the smell of sweat and come. A damp washcloth; a set of his own clean clothes; the emergency medical kit he carries with him when he goes hunting.

“You might, uh, you might want to get cleaned up,” he says. He can’t bring himself to voice the why, and he can see the snarky comeback behind Lucifer’s eyes, but it doesn’t come out. Lucifer sits there while Sam grabs the medical kit and sits back on the cot beside him, just far enough away they won’t brush against each other by accident. He lets Sam take his right hand and turn it palm-up, inspecting the red marks around his wrist; inhales sharply through his teeth at the first sting of antiseptic, but doesn’t snatch his hand away.

Sam keeps his eyes on his task, cleaning up and bandaging. Wrists are fragile, small bones and thin skin and veins showing blue through the skin. It’s a treacherous train of thought, but he can’t look up. He doesn’t want to know what he’ll see in Lucifer’s face if he does.

When he’s done, he gets to his feet, nodding at the pile of clothes on the table. “You can—yeah.” He breaks off. “I should go.”

He’s halfway out the door when Lucifer says, “Sam.”

Sam blinks and stops in the doorway. Hesitates a beat before he turns around.

Lucifer’s eyes are bright in the gloom. For a moment, Sam’s sure Lucifer is about to tell him something.

But he only shakes his head, and looks back at his hands.

Sam locks the door behind him. He gets in the shower and scrubs until his skin turns red-raw. It doesn’t help.

He’s still scrubbing when the vision comes.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s dark. Dark, and quiet. He waits, but his eyes don’t adjust. Absolute nothingness yawns above and below him, though he can’t be sure which is which. It stretches away in every direction. The silence is like nothing he’s ever known before. He can’t hear his own pulse, his own breathing. It should be terrifying.

Instead he feels—at peace. It’s like floating in a warm bath. He likes it here. The cares of the world recede into the distance, become nothing more than the images of shadow puppets in a half-remembered show.

He drifts endlessly, with no idea how long he’s been here. He supposes it doesn’t matter. Time seems to have lost any meaning it once had.

He would like to stay.

“Sam.”

Waking is surfacing, reality breaking cold and unwelcome over his head. When he blinks, water runs into his eyes. He realizes he’s shivering.

“Sam.” Cas’s voice, somewhere above him. Sam scrubs at his eyes and forces himself to sit up on the cold tiled floor.

Oh, yeah. He was taking a shower. After—

No. Sam shies away from that track, reins in the frightened-animal skitter of his thoughts. Not right now. What’s relevant is, he was taking a shower, and he had a vision. Must’ve passed out. Gingerly, he feels his way around his skull, checking for head injuries. His right temple feels a little tender, but it isn’t bleeding—he must have just caught himself on a pipe as he went down. The water’s cold, though. How long has he been out?

“Hey, Cas,” he says, raising his eyes. Cas is standing at the entrance to the communal shower, carefully not looking in Sam’s direction. Sam guesses he appreciates the concession to modesty. “Uh, think you could pass me a towel?”

Cas does as he’s asked. Sam gets to his feet, groaning, and wraps it around himself, feeling a little readier to face the world with his dignity preserved. Only Cas takes that opportunity to turn to face him and ask, earnestly, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, too quickly, and forces a smile in the face of Cas’s worried squint. “I had another vision,” he offers, to change the subject. “Not that it made much sense.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “It was just… darkness. But I wasn’t asleep; it was definitely a memory. I didn’t see anything though. Nothing happened. I was just kind of… floating there.”

“That doesn’t sound like Hell,” Cas says, frowning, and Sam shudders. 

“No. It really wasn’t.” He gathers himself, then. “Anyway, I should—” 

“Sam.” Cas is still standing in the entrance, and there’s no way Sam is getting past him without making things embarrassing for at least one of them. More embarrassing, anyway. 

He sighs. “Cas, I’m fine.”

“Lucifer was unchained.” 

And there it is. He forgot, after—after _that_ , after he found himself bandaging Lucifer’s wrists up out of some misplaced sense of something-or-other. So turned around he just cut and ran. But Lucifer didn’t. 

Lucifer didn’t. Sam isn’t sure if that makes sense or not. And Cas is still staring at him.

Sam rubs at his temples, feeling the throb of a headache starting up. “I just—I noticed he had—bruises, and stuff. From the handcuffs. They could’ve gotten infected, and then we would have had to take him to a doctor, and I just thought—” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe I forgot to cuff him again.”

That’s definitely bullshit. After what happened earlier—what he _did_ earlier—he’s surprised he even has the presence of mind to lie. 

Still, he gives Cas a pleading look. “Don’t tell Dean. He’ll just freak out, and—”

“Sam.” Cas’s voice is surprisingly gentle. “Your compassion does you credit. But be careful. Don’t let Lucifer use it to his advantage.”

Compassion. Sam winces inwardly. “I get it,” he manages. “I think—I’m gonna keep my distance from now on, anyway.”

“That may be wise.”

Sam nods, takes a half-step toward the door. “Uh, you mind—?”

“Apologies.” Cas moves out of his way, and Sam flees to his room.

 

\----

 

After a couple minutes, though, he’s getting antsy. He feels leaden with exhaustion, temples throbbing with the kind of headache you get after staring at the computer screen too long, but he’s still too wired to sleep, afraid of what he’ll see if he shuts his eyes. It’s too early to be awake, but he can’t stay in here any longer. 

He glances up and down the corridor to make sure the coast is clear, then pads down to the laundry room and finds a clean set of sweatpants and a t-shirt, laces up his running shoes and scrapes his hair into a tie to keep it out of his face. He makes sure to close the bunker door quietly when he leaved.

Outside, the sky is lightening to gray toward the horizon. There’s a chilly edge to the air, and Sam gulps in lungfuls of it as he runs. It stings his eyes, the back of his throat. He makes himself concentrate on the discomfort, the burn in his muscles, the steady rhythm of his feet on the ground, hoping that cold air and effort might cleanse him where taking a shower couldn’t.

It almost works. By the time he reaches the bunker again, he’s a little steadier. Morning has broken, the sky pale and pearly. Sam’s t-shirt is soaked with sweat under the arms, his breathing slowing as he stretches on the grass in front of the door. He needs another shower, but that’s a small price to pay for a blank mind; a few minutes’ peace before he has to think about the Devil in the dungeon again.

His relief lasts until he gets in the door. He’s unlacing his running shoes at the bottom of the steps when he hears Dean’s footsteps cross the map room. 

They come to a stop in front of him, but Dean doesn’t say anything. Sam glances up. “You okay?”

He finds Dean leaning against the table, arms crossed over his chest. “So,” Dean says. “You gonna tell me why Satan’s wearing your clothes?”

Sam freezes and straightens up. Dean’s frowning at him—but at least it’s just it’s his regular disagreeing-with-Sam scowl. He’d be having a full-blown freakout if he _knew_. 

He shrugs, hoping it doesn’t look as stiff as it feels. Last night, he just grabbed the nearest things that were clean; didn’t think about the fact they were his, or how that might look come morning. Or how sick he might feel at the mental image of Lucifer wearing his things. 

Maybe he should just be grateful that Dean hasn’t figured the situation out; that apparently what happened last night seems like too much of an impossibility for Dean to put two and two together.

“He asked for clean ones,” Sam lies. “I didn’t know where the stuff you bought for him was.” 

“What, so we’re providing maid service now?” Dean asks. “And seriously, bandages? Since when is our policy ‘try to destroy the world, get a Band-Aid’?”

“Dude.” Sam fixes him with a look, mostly to distract himself from the anxiety roiling in his stomach. “What are you getting at?”

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a sigh. “I just—” He shakes his head. “I know it’s screwing with your head, having him here. That’s what he does. I get it.”

“Dean—”

“Okay, so maybe I can’t get it. Crap, I don’t know, man.” Dean pushes a hand through his hair. “Just don’t—let him make you feel like you owe him anything, you know? He might be human but he’s still freaking _Satan_. You don’t gotta be nice. You don’t have to let him get to you.”

Sam lets out a strangled, involuntary laugh. Dean’s frown deepens, the concern in his expression shading into genuine worry, and Sam holds up a hand to cut off whatever he’s about to say. “Dean,” he says. “I—you don’t need to worry about that. I don’t think—I’m pretty sure he’s not gonna hurt me.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Sam’s surprised to find he believes it. For now, at least, he believes it.

Lucifer could’ve tried to run last night. He isn’t stupid; if he’d put his mind to it, he probably could’ve snuck out of the basement and gotten the drop on Sam while he was unconscious from the vision, but he didn’t. 

Sam isn’t sure what that means, but it means something. But the headache that seemed at bay while he was running is starting to make itself felt again, a painful, nagging pulse, and his limbs are weighed down with exhaustion, and he doesn’t even know where he’d starting figuring it all out. He shoulders his way past Dean, and goes to take another shower.

 

\----

 

He keeps his distance the rest of the day. His sleep that night is fitful, fragmented by visions of searing light and soft darkness; red-raw wrists and ice-chip eyes; the feeling that he needs to scrub himself clean yet again. When his alarm chirps six AM, he’s already awake.

The bunker’s quiet, and when he finds himself inevitably drawn back to the dungeon, there’s no sign of Dean or Cas. Seems they took Sam’s intention to stay away at face value.

Well. Yesterday, Sam would have said he meant it, too.

There was an anecdote he read somewhere, once. Maybe it was around the time he got his soul back. He did a little reading around about the psychology of fear, those nights when he sat up until dawn instead of trying to sleep, not that it helped him any.

Some psychologist figured out that monkeys were instinctively scared of snakes. An evolutionary thing. He showed a toy snake to a bunch of monkeys; they recoiled from it. Then he put a snake inside a bag, and left that in the monkey cage. Every single one of the monkeys came over and looked inside the bag—and even after they knew what was in there, they kept coming back.

Maybe they just wanted to know where it was. Makes sense to keep a watchful eye on something that might kill you, right?

This doesn’t feel like that, though. It’s more like—like checking your reflection in a funhouse mirror; making sure it’s so twisted beyond recognition it can’t possibly be you.

Lucifer isn’t sleeping. Sam finds him sitting up on the edge of the cot, hands clasped in front of him. Same place Sam left him yesterday morning, though his left hand is cuffed to the cot frame again. He’s still wearing Sam’s shirt—buttoned right up to the neck to cover the marks, and for a second, Sam finds himself insanely grateful for that stubborn pride. Apparently Lucifer doesn’t want to invite concern any more than anybody else in this bunker.

Then he realizes thinking of Lucifer like that is thinking of him in human terms. Not just that: thinking of him in the same terms as the people Sam loves. The sheer wrongness of that catches him, and he forces himself to look away; to stop searching for the shadows of bruises on Lucifer’s skin. 

“Hey,” he says. It comes out sounding forced, too cheerful.

Lucifer looks up at him. “Aren’t you supposed to wait three days after—well.” His smirk doesn’t reach his eyes. “I guess that wasn’t exactly our first date.”

Sam sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. He takes an aborted step back toward the door, then turns back and sits down on the cot. It creaks under his weight.

Lucifer glances sharply at him, and Sam sees his clasped hands tighten, feels the tension coming off of him like static in the air. Somehow, it’s more disconcerting than the smirking triumph he was expecting. Discomfort prickles under Sam’s skin. He shouldn’t be here.

But he has to ask. He shifts toward the bottom end of the cot, putting a couple feet between himself and Lucifer. No chance of an accidental touch. Lucifer exhales, the tightness of his shoulders easing a fraction—though he doesn’t take his eyes off Sam. His gaze is sidelong, wary. Sam thinks he’d prefer the creepy unblinking angel stare.

He looks at his feet.

“I had another vision,” he says.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Lucifer’s voice is light, belying the tension in every line of his body. If it wasn’t a completely insane idea, Sam would think he was a little freaked out here, too.

It is a completely insane idea, of course. Sam ignores the tension, and the taunt. “It was dark. I was… just kind of floating there. That was it, pretty much.”

“Not the tell-all you were hoping for, huh?” There’s that mirthless smirk again. “I’d apologize, but…”

Sam’s insides lurch unpleasantly. He steels himself against the feeling, suddenly finding that he misses his anger. It might not have made talking to Lucifer any easier, but it did make it simpler. Right now, though, he can’t find it. Feels like it drained out of him somewhere between what happened yesterday night and waking up this morning, just leaving this sick, gnawing feeling behind.

“Can we just—not?” he says, tiredly. “Can we just talk about the visions?”

Lucifer’s expression does something complicated, just for a second, the smirk twisting into a hard, unhappy thing. It vanishes as quickly as it appeared, and Lucifer inclines his head. “Hey, I am your very own captive audience.”

Sam ignores the dig. “I’m guessing it was the Darkness. What it was like after she—well, after she ate you.”

“You’d be right.”

“That’s what I don’t get,” Sam goes on, frowning. “It was kind of—no, it _was_ peaceful. I wanted to stay there. Or you did. But she was chaos, right? Destruction. It makes no sense.”

“Auntie’s good at the con. Creatures like her and me—we have a special skill set.” He pauses. “Had, anyway.” Lucifer smiles again, then, neutral and empty. “But hey, can’t play a player. I got out.”

“Yeah, because we killed her. You didn’t escape by yourself.”

Lucifer shrugs. “Does it matter?”

Sam sighs, and decides not to push that particular argument right now. “Anyway,” he says. “What did you see?” A nervous thrum starts up in the pit of his stomach as he asks the question. Weird, because he doesn’t know anything useful about the box anyway, and as for the rest of it—Lucifer’s invaded his mind so thoroughly over the years that surely there’s nothing about Sam he doesn’t already know.

Weirder still, Lucifer regards him a moment longer, then cocks his head and announces, “You know what? I don’t think I wanna talk about it.” That spark of challenge again, though it’s a faint echo of what it was yesterday.

That ought to be enough for Sam to find his anger. It still doesn’t come. Instead, he feels the ache of that sleepless night in his bones, heavy with resignation. Getting to his feet is an effort.

Lucifer blinks and looks up when he feels Sam’s weight shift off the cot, like maybe he wasn’t expecting Sam to give in without a fight.

He doesn’t say anything, though, and Sam leaves, careful to lock the door behind him. The bolts slide into place with satisfying weight, but he still feels ill at ease as he walks away. 

Just for a minute there, the funhouse mirror wasn’t twisted enough.

 

\----

 

Dean’s up, when he heads back upstairs. At least, Sam figures it’s unlikely Cas started the pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen. He pours himself a cup and sips meditatively, not sitting down. A moment later he hears Dean’s voice in the corridor saying, “Yeah, keep us posted,” and Dean lets himself into the kitchen.

Sam lifts an eyebrow. “Who’s keeping us posted about what?”

“Crowley.” Dean shoves his cell into the pocket of his dead-guy robe. “I know, giant evil pain in the ass, yadda yadda, but he might have a bead on Rowena.”

“Huh.” Sam sets down his coffee. “So, what do you want to do?”

“Well, she’s a demon, and we’re, what, number three on her shitlist after Crowley and—?” Dean jerks a thumb in the direction of the dungeon door. “I’d say we ice her, but…”

“But what?”

“But Crowley won’t share the info unless we hand her over.”

Sam grimaces. “That sounds like… not the best idea we’ve ever had.”

“Yeah,” Dean admits. “Handing over monsters to Crowley didn’t go so great last time. I don’t see what other choice we got, though.”

Sam sighs. But yeah, Dean’s got a point. Crowley probably wants Rowena so he can make an example of her, with whatever with whatever weird Oedipal family drama is going on there. Rowena locked up in Hell’s basement is less of a problem for them than Rowena running around topside with revenge on her mind—or another demon turf war spilling out onto the earth. 

And okay, a hunt to keep his mind off what’s locked in _their_ basement right now sounds like exactly what he needs.

“How about this?” he suggests. “Crowley gets Rowena. But she still has the Book of the Damned, right? No way Crowley getting his hands on that ends well.”

“Huh.” Dean nods. “Yeah, that works. He gets Mommy Dearest, we lock up the book in the deepest vault the Men of Letters ever built. He’ll go for it.”

“Okay.” Sam pushes hair out of his face. “So where do we start?”

“Crowley’s demon-monkey saw her in Michigan, couple hours outside of Detroit.”

That makes Sam groan internally. It’s like the universe is determined not to give him any respite from Lucifer. If Dean notices his reaction, though, he doesn’t say anything. “Crowley know where she’s hiding out?”

Dean shakes his head. “Doesn’t think his spy got made, though, so chances are she’s still in the area.”

“We’re gonna have to track her down somehow,” Sam says.

Cas’s voice from the doorway surprises him. “We may have a way to do that.” He glances down the corridor, the direction you go if you’re heading to the dungeon.

Dean catches on first. “Well, hey,” he says. “Satan ain’t talking, doesn’t mean he can’t make himself useful.”

“As bait,” Sam realizes.

Dean shrugs. “And for once we don’t gotta feel guilty about it.”

Sam nods, but there’s discomfort curling in his gut. Somehow, he can’t bring himself to raise the obvious objections: _What if he gets away? What if there are loyalists still out there, and they find out on the demon grapevine he’s alive?_ The counterarguments come to mind readily, too. _He’s just human now. Why would Rowena spread gossip that could screw her leadership campaign?_ Anyway, that isn’t really it. There’s something else in him that resists the idea. Instinct tells him he doesn’t want to examine it too closely.

But they have to do something, and this is something. 

“So,” Dean says. “You want me to tell him?”

Sam shakes his head. “I’ll go,” he says. “And—I think we should ask. First, anyway.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“I mean it,” Sam says, surprising himself. “I just—we should be better than him, right?” 

“Fine, like I said, you go be good cop. But he’s coming with us whether he likes it or not.”

 _Good cop._ Sam steels himself and goes.

 

\----

 

Lucifer watches him over the rim of his coffee mug, holding it clasped in both hands. “You want me to act as bait,” he says.

“Rowena probably wants you dead as much as she wants us dead,” Sam points out. “You did kill her. We have a common enemy here.” Safer to stick to the reasonable arguments; not to give Lucifer the chance to get under his skin again.

“She probably does,” Lucifer agrees. He seems less tight-wound than he did earlier. Like he’s on solid ground now they have something else to think about, just like Sam. Still, he eyes Sam speculatively and asks, “So, are you saying I have a choice?”

Sam sighs. “Probably not.”

Lucifer taps a forefinger against the rim of his coffee mug, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You’re not happy about it,” he observes. “Which means you were outvoted. You didn’t want to do this without my permission.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam says, suddenly feeling like he’s under the microscope again. “I don’t think people are expendable. Even—even terrible ones. I’m not like you.” That last part slips out unexpectedly. 

A brief, cold quirk of a smile. “Aren’t you,” Lucifer says. It isn’t a question, and Sam feels the back of his neck flush hotly. 

“Forget it,” he says, and turns for the door, already regretting this. All of it. The asking for permission, the way he keeps finding himself thinking of Lucifer as a person—Dean’s right. Lucifer’s screwing with his head. He should stay away.

“Sam.” It’s quieter, almost gentle, and it stops him in his tracks. “I haven’t given you an answer yet.”

He blinks and turns around. Frowns, waiting for a taunt or a cryptic comment.

It doesn’t come. Lucifer meets his eyes. “Yes,” he says. “I’m saying yes.”

 

\----

 

“So what’s your plan?”

They’re all seated around the table in the basement, on chairs of varying degrees of uncomfortableness. With Lucifer still handcuffed to the table, it looks a little like an interrogation.

Dean scowls at Lucifer across the table. “It’s classified.”

Lucifer looks back at him levelly. “Does that mean you don’t have one?”

“I thought Sammy filled you in.”

“You dangle me in front of Rowena and hope she bites? Little basic, isn’t it? Could use some detail. Like the when and the where, for starters.”

Dean snorts, but doesn’t meet his eyes. “We got a general area. She’ll show up.”

“I guess.” Lucifer shrugs. “Or you could bring me a map.”

Dean blinks in surprise, but Lucifer isn’t looking at him anymore. He meets Sam’s eyes; tilts his head a little, questioning.

This could just be another play in whatever long game Lucifer’s got going here. Going above and beyond to get himself on their good side, hoping Sam will let his guard down, let him get free. Except that he had the chance to try and sneak out yesterday, and he didn’t take it. Sam doesn’t know what Lucifer would even do with freedom right now, mortal and devoid of demon followers and looking a very human kind of tired. Still, every sensible cell in Sam’s body knows he should be suspicious.

He hesitates a moment longer, and goes to fetch a map.


	8. Chapter 8

Back in the basement, Dean and Lucifer seem to be having some kind of stare-off. Dean’s glowering, tension evident in every line of his body. Lucifer looks back at him steadily, expression perfectly mild. Cas glances from one of them to the other, then back, frowning.

Sam clears his throat, breaking the tense silence. “Here.” He sets the map down on the table, plus a Sharpie he grabbed while he was upstairs. He put on a fresh pot of coffee, too, figuring they were probably gonna need it. Okay, and taking a couple extra minutes to breathe without Lucifer giving him that innocent _I’m-just-here-to-help_ look.

Lucifer turns the map one way and then the other, tapping the end of the Sharpie on the table. Then he pops the cap off and gets to work, marking off x-es apparently at random. One in Kansas; a couple in Colorado. A couple more dotted along the East coast. A couple in Mexico. One in Michigan.

When he’s done, he holds the map out to Sam. “That’s all of them.”

Sam holds it up to the light, frowning. “All of what?” he asks, at the same time Dean demands, “What are we supposed to do with this?”

Lucifer ignores him and speaks to Sam instead. “Hideouts I never got around to using, after you first let me out of the Cage. They were set up before I ever got out, and only the demons who fixed them up ever knew about them. My most loyal.”

“If any of those survived Crowley’s purges.”

“Oh, one or two did.” Lucifer shrugs. “And now they think Daddy’s dead—well, what are they gonna do? Crowley won’t be taking them back.” He makes a little grimace of distaste as he says the name. “Only makes sense they’d attach themselves to the demon most likely to take him down.”

“And that’s Rowena.”

“And she may be annoyingly sycophantic, but she isn’t stupid. She isn’t gonna turn down a ready-made infrastructure. Especially not one that used to belong to yours truly.”

Sam frowns. “Yeah, that’s a point. What’s in those places?”

Lucifer shrugs. “I didn’t exactly keep inventory, but probably some weapons. Magical artefacts, grimoires—I mean, we’re not talking the Book of the Damned here, but we’re not talking _The Spiral Dance_ , either.”

“Awesome,” Dean says. “Nice job powering up Queen of the Asshats, Satan.”

Lucifer spares him a sharp glance. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” he says, “but I don’t remember digging up the Book of the Damned and letting the witch walk off with it. Remind me. Who was that, again?”

To his left, Sam sees Cas shift uncomfortably in his chair. Dean narrows his eyes and gets to his feet. “I don’t have to listen to this crap.”

“Dean.” Sam holds up a placating hand. “We need to find Rowena. Sooner, not later. I hate to say it, but we sure as hell aren’t gonna do it any faster without his help.”

He watches Dean bite back a retort. But he does bite it back, subsiding into his chair with another glower in Lucifer’s direction. Lucifer raises an eyebrow, and Sam turns on him.

“Don’t,” he says. “You wanna help, then help. But whatever crack you’re about to make, just—don’t.”

Lucifer subsides, and somehow, that isn’t as surprising as it ought to be. Sam ignores the twinge of unease he feels at the thought and turns back to Dean and Cas.

“So,” he says. “What’s the plan?”

Dean points to an x on the map—Snover, Michigan. The one just outside of Detroit. “ _If_ he’s telling the truth,” he says, “this is where she’s at.”

“So, what, we show up there, take her by surprise?”

“That would be unwise,” Cas chimes in. “We don’t know how many demons are on Rowena’s side, or what she might be capable of with the Book of the Damned still in her possession. Or whatever else is in that safehouse.”

“Cassie’s right.” 

Cas squints, not exactly looking pleased to have Lucifer agreeing with him. He doesn’t interrupt, though.

“The little witch packs a punch. I mean, she broke me out. And not for nothing, but—” Lucifer gestures at Cas with his free hand. “I’ve seen into your memories. She made you dance like a monkey once before; no saying she won’t do it again. You guys run in there, you’re probably not running back out.”

Dean crosses his arms. “Who asked you, genius?”

Lucifer looks pointedly at Sam, and Dean shuts up. “We should stick to the original plan,” he says. “Draw her out. Separate her from her supporters, and preferably the book, too.”

“How’s that gonna help?” Dean says. “If Rowena’s got a demon army, you seriously think she’s gonna come after you without them?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“I get it,” Sam cuts in. It earns him a scowl from Dean and a quick, pleased glance from Lucifer. “Some of Rowena’s supporters were loyal to you first. She’ll be afraid of them switching sides again, so she’ll come alone”

Lucifer smiles at him. “Demon Psychology 101.”

Sam ignores the smile. “So we just need to get her away from wherever she’s holed up.”

“And Crowley shows up for his family therapy session with a few reinforcements and takes her out.” Lucifer glances back at Dean, then at Cas. “While those two sneak into Rowena’s headquarters and grab the book.”

Sam opens his mouth to cut in, head off another argument, but Dean gets there first.

“Us two?” he says. “What the hell makes you think Sammy’s gonna be your babysitter?”

“What makes you think I’d go anywhere with _you_?”

“Oh, I dunno… the fact that I’ve got a gun and you can die now?”

“Dean.” Sam holds up a placating hand. They both go quiet, Lucifer’s glare subsiding at the sound of Sam’s voice. Sam doesn’t want to think about why he does that, when he’s apparently still ready to fight with Dean at a moment’s notice, so he shuts off the train of thought and tries to focus on the damn plan. “I’ll be okay,” he tells Dean. “I mean, things are probably gonna run smoother if you guys aren’t on the same team.”

Cas frowns. “I agree,” he says, his eyes flicking toward Lucifer, discomfort obvious in the lines of his face. “But we should focus on taking out Rowena’s demons first. We don’t know how many there are.”

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “A demon is a demon is a demon. The book’s more important.”

Cas looks like he’s considering it, and Sam can’t exactly disagree. “I hate to say it,” he says, “but Lucifer might be right. Without a leader, Rowena’s demons will probably just scatter. But if they have the book—”

He casts a glance in Dean’s direction and finds him looking at his feet, eyes distant. For half a second, Sam’s surprised. Then a flash of memory hits him. Dean in the motel room with Charlie, back when they were running from the Stynes. The hypnotic trance he fell into when he laid eyes on the Book of the Damned. How he said he could feel it calling him, begging him to take it and do evil.

“Can’t believe I’m freaking saying this,” Dean mutters, raising his eyes. “I agree with Satan. We take out as many demons as we can while we’re there—but we swipe the book.” He glances over at Sam. “And this time, we find a way to destroy it.”

Out the corner of his eye, Sam sees Lucifer watching him, expression opaque. How screwed up is it that the twinge of old guilt he feels at Dean’s words is kind of a relief? At least it’s a feeling he can make sense of.

He turns to Dean and says, “Yeah. We’ll find a way.”

 

\----

 

They take two cars, because like any time Dean has to back down in an argument, he doubles down on the stuff he can control—and right now, that means insisting that _no way in Hell is Satan sitting his ass in the back of my baby_. So Lucifer’s riding shotgun with Sam, handcuffed to the passenger door and gazing out the window as the afternoon darkens into evening and the sun sets. He’s quiet, and the lights of passing cars wash his face pale, carve shadowed hollows under his eyes. It should make him look alien, maybe; remind Sam of just what is sitting next to him.

Instead, it mostly makes him look tired. Sam keeps his eyes on the road.

They still haven’t spoken by the time Sam realizes he needs to stop for gas. Lucifer was happy to snipe back at Dean, to patronize the hell out of Cas—but alone with Sam, all of that has drained out of him. He holds himself carefully, not meeting Sam’s eyes, even though he’d insisted on Sam being the one to accompany him, earlier. 

All of it leaves a knot of suspicion in Sam’s gut, only not the kind of suspicion he was expecting. After what happened the other night—after what he _did_ the other night—he felt like he’d walked straight into some trap, proved Lucifer right in some way. Thinking about it still makes his skin crawl. Only now Lucifer’s acting like he didn’t get what he expected, and he doesn’t know what to do with Sam.

Which, at least, makes two of them.

Dangerous, thinking of them both in the same breath, doubled like that. You don’t give Lucifer understanding, ten times more dangerous in his hands than an archangel’s blade.

Sam pulls the car in at the next gas station they come to and yanks on the brake. There’s a beagle in back of the family saloon in front of them, gazing out the windscreen with its big, sad eyes. A truck pulled over on the side of the forecourt with its cab done out like the set of a porno, all purple velvet and zebra print, its driver a dude with a graying beard and a Santa Claus belly—which kind of makes you admire his optimism. A couple arguing over directions in front of the store, both of them jabbing at their phones.

Just mundane stuff, life going on like it does everywhere, but Lucifer watches the whole scene like a visitor at the zoo.

Probably just something to pass the time while he’s ignoring Sam. He was never like Cas, actually giving a crap about the humans and their tiny little lives. Even so, it occurs to Sam how little time Lucifer’s actually spent in the human world. He spent most of the Apocalypse hidden away, plotting with his demons, convinced that humanity was gonna be gone anyway in a couple months’ time. When he was possessing Cas, he mostly hung out in Crowley’s headquarters. What must it feel like to turn into the thing you’ve been avoiding; to have so little idea about what you are?

Sam takes a deep breath and cracks open the car door. Lucifer turns to face him, nose wrinkling when he gets a whiff of gasoline-scented air.

“We need fuel,” Sam explains, needlessly. Lucifer shrugs and looks like he’s about to go back to staring out the car window. Sam swallows. “You, uh,” he begins, before the sensible part of his brain can kick in and remind him why conversation is a bad idea. “You want anything to eat? Or water, or something?”

This time, there’s a flicker of interest in Lucifer’s pale eyes. He looks up at Sam for a moment, contemplating… something, then nods. “Sure.”

That’s it. Sam shrugs and gets out the car, pays for gas and comes back with a couple bags of chips and some bottled water. The knot of unease in his stomach gives a little when Lucifer takes his share with a quiet, apparently-sincere “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam tries not to think too hard about why. When they hit the road again, Lucifer quits it with his stubborn staring out the window at anything but Sam and settles back into the shotgun seat so he looks more like a passenger than a prisoner. He even glances in Sam’s direction a couple times.

Sam’s tired enough to accept it. It feels like a kind of truce.

 

\----

 

They pull up to the motel, and Sam climbs out to stretch his legs in the parking lot, knees protesting at the hours they’ve spent cramped up behind the wheel. The passenger side door doesn’t open, and it takes him a second to register that of course Lucifer is still in the car—Sam needs to uncuff him before he can get out.

It’s awkward, shielding what he’s doing with his body so that nobody in the motel will be able to see he’s got a dude handcuffed to his car door. Sam bites back the urge to say something as he bends to open the door. What would he say, anyway?

Lucifer holds very still while he unlocks the cuffs. He blinks when Sam’s thumb accidentally brushes the back of his hand; wiggles his fingers once he’s free of the cuffs, a little crease appearing between his eyebrows. He still doesn’t say anything.

Sam swallows and gets to his feet.

When he turns around, Dean’s waving at him from a motel room door. Sam lifts a hand in greeting, alert with one ear to the sound of the car door closing behind him, the way Lucifer hovers half a pace back as Dean crunches over the gravel toward them. Devil at his shoulder, just like the first time they met.

“Dude,” Dean says, coming to a stop in front of him. “You’re just gonna let him wander around without—?” 

“Standing right here,” Lucifer grumbles.

Sam flushes, realizing he’s mentally dismissed the possibility of Lucifer making a break for it. He rolls his eyes at Dean, to cover it up. “Might look a little suspicious,” he points out. “I don’t think it’s that kind of motel.”

“Night’s young,” Dean says, a reflex, but he’s still eyeing Lucifer dubiously. He pauses before pressing a key into Sam’s hand. “Got two doubles. If you wanna bunk with me, Cas says he can—”

Sam casts a glance behind him. Lucifer’s glaring daggers at Dean, but hasn’t moved from Sam’s side. He flexes the fingers of his right hand, unconscious, tugging his sleeve down to cover up the bandage around his wrist. Sam’s eyes catch on the gesture, and for a long moment he can’t tear them away.

“Sam.” Dean’s looking at him, concern and a dozen imminent questions in his eyes. 

“It’s fine,” he says, and takes the key.

“I won’t hurt your brother, Dean.” Sam’s surprised to hear Lucifer speak at all. There’s an edge to his voice and Dean obviously picks up on it, throwing Sam a questioning look. Sam shrugs, _Don’t ask me_ , and Dean lifts his eyes to the heavens, long-suffering.

“I’m beat,” Sam announces, and pops the trunk. He pulls out the bags and heads for the room number on the key.

Lucifer follows him like a shadow. In the darkness of the parking lot, Sam can’t make out his expression.

 

\----

 

It’s just your standard dingy motel room, twin beds and fading Seventies wallpaper. Lucifer looks around it with mild curiosity while Sam locks the door and digs in his duffel for chalk to put up wards.

“You lived in places like this,” Lucifer says. “For years.”

Sam glances up, surprised by the remark after so many hours of silence. “Yeah.”

Lucifer frowns at him. “What was that like?”

He shrugs. “It was…normal, I guess. We never knew any different.”

“Sam.” Lucifer puts his head on one side, the bland expression he’s worn all day slipping a little. Behind it, his gaze is as piercing as ever. “You ran away so you could know different.”

Sam shifts from foot to foot under the scrutiny. “Well, yeah, but I’d already lived on the road for eighteen years before I left. Having a home was the weird part. Just—knowing nobody else was gonna be sleeping in my bed the next night. Not having to be ready to pack up my stuff in two minutes if Dad said it was time to hit the road. But you know all that stuff anyway. Why ask?” 

He doesn’t mention Jess, and Lucifer doesn’t push it. He doesn’t answer, either; just watches Sam a couple seconds longer, then turns to inspect the wallpaper beside the window, poking at a damp spot with one finger like it’s personally offended him.

Sam lets out a sigh. “It’s late,” he says. “Go—hit the head, or take a shower, or whatever you gotta do. We should try to sleep.” 

He drops the spare duffel on the bed furthest from the door and sinks down on the other. Lucifer hesitates a moment, looking like maybe he’s about to say something else, but then he picks up the bag and disappears into the bathroom. Sam hears a moment’s fumbling followed by the sound of the shower running. Normal, human sounds.

He closes his eyes and lays back on the bed, and tries not to think. He just about manages it, too—until the bathroom door creaks open and Lucifer emerges barefoot and blinking, rubbing at his damp hair with a towel so it sticks up at all angles. For once, Sam’s grateful for the crappy motel room lighting, the way it reduces the bruises from the other night to faint shadows.

It isn’t fair for Lucifer to look that much like a person. Sam feels a momentary spike of that anger he thought he’d gotten rid of, but it fades away again as quickly as it came. He just doesn’t have the energy to feed it, he guesses.

Lucifer sits down heavily on the other bed. The bandages around his wrists are soggy, and he worries at the edge of one of them with finger and thumb. Sam frowns, then reaches for his duffel.

“Here.” Lucifer blinks at the sound of his voice. Sam holds out the duffel. “There’s a spare medical kit in there. You need to replace those.”

Lucifer doesn’t answer, just gives him this opaque little frown, but he takes the bag. Sam double-checks the door to the room is locked, pockets both keys, and goes to take a shower.

The water’s mostly cold but he stands under it anyway, letting it sluice away the stale smell of being on the road and the ache of sitting in the car all day. The sound of the shower in his ears is a welcome antidote to Lucifer’s silence.

When he leaves the bathroom, Lucifer’s still sitting where Sam left him, fumbling with the bandage on his left wrist. Southpaw, at least in this form. It’s a disconcerting thing to find himself thinking about. Sam’s held the Devil inside his skull, the whole terrifying power of an archangel, but before now he didn’t know which hand the guy writes with. It never even occurred to him that that would be a thing. 

Honestly, he kind of wishes he didn’t know it was a thing.

Lucifer looks up at him at he closes the bathroom door, but doesn’t ask for help. Sam watches him a moment longer, then lets out a sigh and sits beside him.

“Let me,” he says.

Lucifer goes still at the touch of his hand, looking at him sideways, and Sam carefully doesn’t meet his eyes. But then he nods and lets Sam tie off the bandage—slow, cautious movements, avoiding brushing skin as best he can—with something like relief in his face. 

“Thank you,” he says, after a moment.

Sam looks away. “Don’t mention it.” He gets to his feet, grabs the med kit and stuffs it back into his duffel.

Something else catches his eye, gleaming at him in among his clothes and other crap. Handcuffs.

Apparently they catch Lucifer’s eye, too, because he looks up at Sam and settles back on the bed, holding out his left hand. Something in the gesture looks like a challenge. Sam just isn’t sure what the challenge is.

He’s still the Devil. He still can’t be trusted. That’s the truth of it, however human he might look right now, however well he’s playing at being willing to help.

Sam repeats it, in his head. He’s still the Devil. He fastens the handcuffs, still avoiding Lucifer’s eyes, and shuts the key up in his nightstand drawer, on the far side of the room where Lucifer can’t reach it. 

“I’m gonna put the light out,” he says. “That okay?” It feels like he’s offering a concession, somehow.

Lucifer just looks at him for a moment, eyes sharp, and Sam half expects a retort, a _stop talking like I’m your guest here_. But he just says, “Yeah,” and rolls over, facing away from Sam. He doesn’t say anything else, and eventually Sam figures he’s at least pretending to sleep.

 

\----

 

Sam wakes once, in the night.

At first he isn’t sure what startled him out of sleep. He lies there disoriented, blinking as the lights of a passing car skew over the motel room ceiling.

Lucifer says something, then. 

Sam can’t understand it, still only halfway out of his dreams, but he sits up and faces the other bed.

Sometime during the night, Lucifer’s rolled onto his back. He has his free hand fisted in the comforter, his face screwed up in what might be anger or fear—Sam doesn’t know, but it looks pretty desperate, either way. He makes a low, unhappy sound as Sam watches, and speaks again. The strange, guttural syllables of Enochian; a language that’s mostly theory to Sam. No wonder he couldn’t figure out what Lucifer was saying.

He hesitates a moment before getting out of bed. Stands with his hand hovering over Lucifer’s shoulder.

If this were Dean, he’d let the nightmare run its course and be there to pick up the pieces in the morning. If it were Cas, during one of his mostly-human periods, Sam would probably shake him awake and be ready with a beer.

He’s saved from having to come up with a solution. While he’s still hesitating, Lucifer’s expression slackens. “Answer me, you bastard,” he says. English, this time. His tone isn’t angry enough for the words. It’s barely more than a breath, faint with sadness.

Then he rolls onto his side and the tension goes out of him. Sam hovers a second longer before climbing back into his own bed.

Lucifer’s quiet for the rest of the night, but Sam doesn’t sleep easy.

 

\----

 

“She’ll be looking for us in the town. The motel, or one of those greasy diners where you and your brother hang out. That’s where we should be, not out in the sticks.”

Sam blinks in surprise—it’s the first time Lucifer’s offered an opinion today—but he shakes his head. “Too many people,” he says. 

“What’s the population of this place anyway? A couple hundred?”

Sam presses his lips together. “Any civilian casualties at all is too many.”

Lucifer shrugs and turns his eyes back to the road.

He’s silent until they pull up on a stretch of scrubby wasteland, out back of what used to be a paper factory. There’s a storage shed nearby, all but one of the windows smashed in, green spines of bullthistle growing through the space where the door used to be. A rotten tarp hangs over the gap, flapping in the breeze like a dead wing.

Lucifer casts a skeptical glance around the place before he turns back to Sam. “Here?”

Sam nods and pulls out his phone. He taps in 6-6-6—because he refuses to have Crowley on speed dial, damn it—and looks up just in time to catch Lucifer rolling his eyes with Dean-worthy theatricality.

Well. That, Sam can kind of understand. One corner of his mouth twitches up in a smile before he remembers who he’s looking at. He stops himself, schools his expression, but not before Lucifer catches his eye. Maybe it’s Sam’s imagination, but he thinks he sees a flicker of surprise.

There’s a click on the other end of the line, drawing him back to the task at hand. “Moose.”

This time, Sam’s the one rolling his eyes. “Crowley. I’ve found somewhere. I’m texting the co-ordinates now. I’ll let you know when Rowena shows. Don’t come until I text you.”

“Service with a scowl as usual, then? Could’ve let your brother take care of this part, really, Sam. At least he likes me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

Crowley gives an exaggerated huff. “Fine, fine. I’ll be waiting. Try not to let your pet antagonize Mother Dear before I get there.”

“Just be—wait, my what?”

“You heard me.” This time, there’s a smile in Crowley’s voice. He hangs up. For a moment, Sam’s left with a cold twist in his guts and the certain feeling that he _knows_. 

It leaves him wary—though he didn’t have the phone on speaker, and can’t tell from Lucifer’s expression whether he heard. Maybe not; maybe he’s just as keen to avoid the topic as Sam is. Sam watches his face as he unfastens the handcuffs, but it’s unreadable.

Out of the car, Lucifer stretches and rubs at his wrists, glancing over the scrubby stretch of land. He looks at Sam and says, mildly, “I don’t think the witch is gonna show if she catches you here.”

Sam glances over at the empty storage shed. The windows are high, but not too high for him to keep watch through. Looks like as good a hideout as any. 

He hesitates for a second before he retreats to it, and Lucifer gives him a questioning look.

Sam swallows. “Be careful,” he says, and then wishes he hadn’t, the back of his neck flushing hot.

Lucifer nods minutely, the faint crease of a frown on his face. He doesn’t smirk, doesn’t say, _Aww, Sam, I didn’t think you cared._

Sam doesn’t know what to think about that, so he flees before he can say anything else he regrets, ducking in under the doorway tarp and wiping a clean patch on the grimy window with his sleeve. When he looks out, Lucifer’s sitting on the ground, cross-legged in the long grass. As Sam watches, he wets the tip of his forefinger and draws it across the back of his right hand, breaking the demon warding that Sam traced there earlier. Then he waits.

He’s very still. It’s kind of strange to see. Sam realizes he’s always pictured Lucifer in motion—fidgeting, gesturing, touching stuff he shouldn’t. Or looming, prowling, getting all up in Sam’s personal space. Out here, though, he’s still as a rock, and Sam can’t help but wonder if this is how he was before the Fall, before humans, when there was nothing but nature wherever you looked.

Then he catches himself wondering, and pulls up that train of thought.

A movement in the grass catches his attention and he tenses, though part of him is grateful for the distraction. Lucifer doesn’t move; Sam isn’t sure he’s noticed there’s anything there at all. He tightens his grip on his gun. 

Then he relaxes it again, blinking as a white cat pokes its head out of the undergrowth.

To his surprise, it pads straight up to Lucifer. To his even greater surprise, Lucifer holds out a hand for it to sniff—and, when it gets closer, he scratches it behind its ear. It butts its head against his hand; Sam imagines it must be purring, chirruping at the attention.

The whole scene is too absurd. Lucifer having a Pet the Kitty moment, right there in front of him. Just sitting there on the ground, staring at the cat, his expression open and curious. They look at each other like they’re having some silent conversation.

Maybe it makes a certain amount of sense, though. Back when he first came on the scene, Lucifer claimed he was pissed at humans for ruining the planet—though Sam figured that was an afterthought, and Lucifer was mostly just pissed at them for being humans. But if he’d been born mortal—well, maybe he would’ve been one of those people who prefers animals to their own species. Sam can kind of see that.

The cat pushes its head against Lucifer’s hand again, its tail making a question mark in the air. Then it opens its eyes, and they flash green, way too bright to be natural.

Sam draws his gun.

Lucifer doesn’t look fazed, though. He nods, expression mild, as the cat slinks back off into the grass. He keeps his stillness even when there’s a crack like thunder, and in front of him, a swirl of black smoke resolves itself into the shape of an unfamiliar woman.

Well, her face is unfamiliar. She’s dark-haired, tan and a little too tall. But the fancy up-do, the slinky sequined dress? Those are classic Rowena.

Lucifer smiles up at her from where he’s sitting on the floor. “Dramatic entrance,” he says. “Should’ve guessed that would be your thing.”

Rowena looks amused. “Could say the same for you—or could’ve done, once upon a time. Looks like you’re without the equipment right now.” She peers down at him. “You’re still human.”

 _Still?_ Sam thinks, _Why did she say ‘still’?_ and then he figures it out.

The voice—the one from his visions, the one saying, _It has to be you_. Scots lilt flattened out by years on this side of the pond. Familiar accent, unfamiliar timbre. 

The demon helping Lucifer look for his grace didn’t tell him about Rowena. It _was_ Rowena. 

Another layer of bullshit. 

Sam doesn’t have time to think about it now, so he pushes down the cold swell of inevitability; ignores the little voice in his head saying _stupid, stupid, stupid_. Runs through scenarios in his head.

He could make a break for it, but Rowena would probably have him on his face in the dirt before he reached the car. No way Dean and Cas will be here in time to help him. He isn’t close enough to get her with Ruby’s knife, and the devil’s trap bullets in his gun will trap her but not kill her. She’s still got all the witchy knowledge she had as a human, and there’s no saying they’ll stop her being able to use it.

There’s a certain satisfaction in the idea of putting a bullet in Lucifer right where he sits; but Sam doesn’t do it.

He guesses he’s gonna have to stick to the original plan. Keeping an eye on Rowena out the window, he reaches for his phone and taps out _NOW_ , then sends it to Crowley.

Outside, Lucifer’s still sitting on the ground. He directs a bland smile up at Rowena. “Well, that’s the thing about being around since the beginning of time. You learn patience.” 

“Or you just don’t know what to do when your plans don’t work out. Not much good at thinking on their feet, your lot.” Rowena blinks, and her eyes flash black. “Besides, he doesn’t exactly look smitten to me.” Sam doesn’t have time to puzzle over what that’s supposed to mean, because then she waves in his direction, like she can see him right through the walls of the shed. “Long time, no see, Samuel.”

His stomach drops. He gives her a weak smile out the window and hopes she won’t see him reaching for his gun. 

She only looks at him for a moment. Then she turns her attention back to Lucifer, eyes cold and shiny as onyx. Honestly, though, she doesn’t look like she’s talking to an ally. Sam’s seen Rowena in conciliatory mood, trying to curry favor with whoever happens to be the most powerful entity in the room at the moment. This is—not that. She’s looking at him more like a spider she’s about to step on.

Did she start out working for Lucifer because he offered her a bribe, then turn on him when she realized he was human and couldn’t deliver? 

But if that’s the case, why didn’t Lucifer tell them who she was earlier? Surely it would be in his interest to have her taken out?

“If you’re here to complain,” Rowena says, “well, I’m sorry, but I told you there were no guarantees.” She gives a little one-shouldered shrug and lifts her hand, green fire sparking at her fingertips. “Besides, I don’t give refunds to dead people.”

Sam should let her do it. Lucifer’s served his purpose getting her here, and he’s obviously been keeping secrets, and he might still be more dangerous than Sam knows. Keeping him around is more trouble than it’s worth. Crowley will be here any second. Chances are, she won’t have time to get to Sam once she’s taken Lucifer out.

Lucifer doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t get to his feet and try to face Rowena down; doesn’t run for his life. He just watches.

Sam lifts his gun to the window and fires.

The shock of the bullet sends Rowena staggering back, just a couple feet before the devil’s trap takes hold and pins her where she stands. She looks down, fingering the bullet wound in the left side of her abdomen—the hole torn in her spangly silver dress, the little dark spot of blood. 

When she raises her head, her face is twisted with rage. 

“You shouldn’t have done that, Samuel,” she says, and she lifts her hands again, the green fire curling up to her wrists now.

“Hello, mother.”

For the space of a heartbeat, Sam’s happier to see Crowley than he could ever have imagined.

Then his self-preservation instincts kick in and reminds him he needs to get the hell out of here. 

He honestly considers leaving Lucifer to it. Whether Rowena kills him dead or Crowley locks him up in that abandoned asylum, it’s no more than he deserves. Even after the other night, after how weird he’s been acting since, he was still holding out. Being rid of him would give Sam a little peace. He wouldn’t have to keep sifting through the crap, figuring out which pieces of Lucifer’s truth are actually true.

“Och, if it isn’t the disappointment,” Rowena says, with a theatrically put-upon look that Sam would recognize on any face.

“Oh,” Crowley promises, “you’re about to be very, very disappointed. And by ‘disappointed’ I mean ‘disemboweled’.” He snaps his fingers, and there’s a familiar sound that even now makes Sam feel a deep twinge of dread. A disembodied growl; the breathing of something that isn’t beast or demon, but lopes across the shadowland between. A shimmer of movement to Crowley’s right.

And Lucifer’s still sitting on the ground in between them. Fresh human meat.

Later, Sam will tell himself it’s just that the thought of watching somebody—anybody—get torn to shreds by hellhounds is more than he can deal with, reminds him too much of the first time he lost Dean.

Now, he breaks course and grabs Lucifer by the arm. “Run,” he hisses, and makes for the car.

 

\----

 

The car rattles as Sam floors it down the dirt road, the baying of the hellhound receding behind them. In the rear view, green fire flares and then dissipates in the air. Sam sucks in a breath and keeps his eyes on the road.

He only thinks to look at Lucifer when they’re back on the highway. He’s sitting with eyes straight ahead, too—but they’re distant, like he isn’t even seeing the road. Troubled, even.

Sam worries at his lower lip for a moment before he asks, “What was that about back there?”

Lucifer keeps his eyes forward. “So you heard.” He doesn’t sound surprised.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I mean, not that I should be surprised you were lying again, I guess, but—”

“I didn’t lie to you.” There’s that edge to Lucifer’s voice again; the same sharp undercurrent with which he spoke to Dean yesterday. Sam’s actually a little surprised to hear it directed at him, but when he glances to his right, Lucifer’s still looking out front.

“I’d saying not telling us you’d been in touch with Rowena counts.”

Lucifer turns to face him, eyes narrowed. “I told you a demon had helped look for my grace. Or at least, that was what she was supposed to be doing.” His lips thin. “Now I’m not so sure. I didn’t know she was planning a takeover until you told me.”

Sam raises his eyebrows. “You’re saying she lied to you?”

“Apparently.” It’s clipped, an end-of-conversation statement, and Lucifer turns his eyes back to the road. 

That, more than anything else, makes Sam think he might be telling the truth.

 

\----

 

Dean texts him not too long later, just, _Got the book, see you at the bunker._

Sam sends back a _Got it_ and keeps driving, tunnel vision, until the morning wears on into afternoon, then evening, the sky finally bluing into night. They stop for gas and food, but it doesn’t actually occur to him until they get back in the car that Lucifer isn’t handcuffed anymore.

He hasn’t made a break for it, though; hasn’t tried anything; hasn’t done much of anything except sit and frown to himself. Sam hesitates over it, because yeah, he should probably put the cuffs back on anyway. 

Only Lucifer’s had plenty of opportunities to try to get away if he wanted to. Sam doesn’t think that is what he wants, actually. He conspicuously hasn’t asked about the Book of the Damned, even though he was so adamant they needed to snatch it from Rowena’s minions.

Still, he seems different than he did when he showed up at the bunker. Less full of it; kind of uncertain. Tired, even. Like it’s taking him a little while to figure out his next move. Sam doesn’t know whether to put it down to the Rowena thing, or what happened the other night, or whatever vision Lucifer still isn’t telling him about—but somehow, he’s pretty sure Lucifer will be coming back to the bunker without a fight.

Sure enough, next time he looks over to his right, Lucifer’s nodding in the passenger seat, eyes closed. He doesn’t even wake up when Sam has to brake for some idiot who pulls out of an intersection without using her blinker. Sam leaves him to sleep.

They’re halfway down the bunker stairs when Dean looks up at them from the map table, does a double take, and says, “Dude, you let Satan off the leash?”

Sam stops, blinking, and then realizes maybe he should’ve put the handcuffs back on before they came in.

Standing two steps below him, Lucifer blinks a couple times and says, “Don’t worry, Dean, I wouldn’t hump your leg if you paid me.” But he turns back to Sam then, and he isn’t laughing. There’s the hint of a shadow in his eyes, just for a second, before he holds out his hands. “But hey, if it makes you feel better…”

Sam takes a breath, and finds that he’s made a decision. “You know what?” he says. “I’m gonna give you a chance. You could’ve run back there, and you didn’t. You helped us out.”

“Sammy—” Dean’s on his feet, looking at him like he’s just suggested—well, like he’s just suggested letting Lucifer wander freely around the bunker, he guesses. Sam shoots him a glance that he hopes conveys, _I know what I’m doing here_ with a little more conviction than he feels.

He can’t read Lucifer’s expression, can’t figure out whether it’s satisfaction or suspicion or surprise that he sees there, so he doesn’t try.

“But, uh, no leaving the bunker, okay?” he adds, and then turns to Dean. Who, unsurprisingly, is still glaring at him.

“Seriously, Sam. Have you gone—?” 

“You heard from Crowley yet?” Sam interrupts, and then heads for the corridor so that Dean has to follow him.

“Yeah,” Dean says, as he catches up. “He got her. Now can we talk about your buddy-cop movie with Satan?”

“How about the Book of the Damned?” he asks. “You and Cas get it?”

“Yeah. And we’re burying it in concrete until we figure out how to obliterate it for good. Now quit changing the subject.”

“Not yet,” Sam says, and Dean stares at him. “The book, I mean.”

“Sam. We talked about this. That thing is nothing but bad news.”

“I know.” Sam holds up a placating hand. “I do. But listen—” He glances behind him, down the corridor. Empty. “Rowena said something, earlier. She was working for Lucifer.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Before, I mean. Before he came to the bunker. She was supposed to help find his grace, only I guess she ditched him when she realized she was in with a chance of taking the top job for herself. I think that’s why he agreed to help us. He wants the book.”

“So even more reason to get rid of it.”

Sam shakes his head. “Not now,” he says. “Not before we know what his play is.” He takes a breath. “I think we should wait and see what he does.”

“Or we dump the damn book where the sun don’t shine before he can do whatever he’s doing. Seriously, Sam, what isn’t obvious about this?”

_I just want him not to be able to trick me. Just once._

Sam doesn’t say it: Dean wouldn’t get it, he doesn’t think. Instead, he says, “And if we don’t know what his game is, he’ll just find another way. I’m not saying we let him go ahead and use magic—we keep all the supply rooms locked down. But there’s this spell—in the archives. The guy who was Master of Spells before Sinclair came up with it. It’s like a ward specific to books of magic. If anyone tampered with his grimoires, he wouldn’t just know who did it—he’d know exactly which words had been read. I’m pretty sure I can work it.” 

Dean’s jaw tightens, and Sam sees him think about arguing. But it makes sense. Sam knows it does. Getting rid of the book is all fine and dandy, but until they know what Lucifer’s trying to do, there’s no saying it will stop him. In the end, Dean sighs, the fight going out of him.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine, we’ll give it a couple days.” He points at Sam. “But if he makes a bloody mess? You’re on cleanup duty.” 

Sam nods. “Just give me the book.”


	9. Chapter 9

The spell is actually pretty cool. Dean stands by and watches him do it, just waiting for something to go wrong so he can shove Lucifer back in the basement.

Sam gets it; he does. It isn’t like the idea of Lucifer wandering the bunker’s corridors uncontained fills him with joy. It’s just that being kept guessing, sitting passively in the audience waiting for Lucifer to do the big reveal, fills him with dread. With worse things too, maybe.

But he isn’t thinking about that. He finishes the incantation, lets a pungent pinch of herbs scatter over the book, and blows out the candle.

It isn’t showy: just a faint flash like the afterimage of a firework, and a puff of nasty-smelling smoke that makes Dean do an exaggerated cough and cover his mouth with his sleeve.

Sam rolls his eyes and hands him the book. “Wait until I’m out of the room,” he says. 

Dean hesitates a second before taking it, and he can’t help a pang of guilt. Dean doesn’t complain, though, just takes the thing, nose wrinkling as his fingers touch the leather, and says, “Okay, scram.”

He shuts the door behind him and leans up against the corridor wall, eyelids sliding shut involuntarily. After the Rowena thing this morning, and the fifteen-hour drive back from Michigan with a brooding Lucifer riding shotgun—yeah, he needs some sleep. His mind is on the verge of drifting—and then he sees it.

The book opens in his mind’s eye, as clear as if he were looking right at it. The symbols on the page gradually come into focus, starting about halfway down. They reach the bottom, then stop.

Sam waits a moment longer and lets himself back into the room. “Page… seventy-eight,” he says. “You started about halfway down.”

He watches Dean set the book down and page back to the front, lips moving faintly as he keeps count of the pages.

“You got it,” he says, after a moment. “Cool. One Satan-proof book.” He doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s very cool, but Sam can hardly blame him.

Sam nods. “I’ll go lock it up in the library,” he says. “We make it too easy, he’ll probably figure it out.”

“Okay.”

Sam hesitates a moment before he leaves. “You, uh, you mind making up one of the guest rooms?” he asks. He should probably offer to do it himself, with this being his idea, only he still hasn’t totally figured out Dean’s arcane laundry-filing system. Seriously; that thing makes Library of Congress look like counting to ten.

That, and part of him feels like it’s better if he stays away from where Lucifer’s gonna be sleeping.

Better for who, he isn’t sure.

“Hey, evil houseguest was your idea,” Dean grumbles, but then he makes a face and adds, “Not like you know where the pillowcases are anyway,” and follows Sam out the door.

 

\----

 

Dean picks the guestroom at the farthest end of the corridor, so that if Lucifer gets up and goes snooping the night, he’ll have to pass Sam’s and Dean’s bedroom doors. It makes good sense. More sense than Sam feels capable of at the moment, anyway.

He emerges as Sam makes his way back from the library, shutting the door behind him with a moue of distaste.

“Everything okay?” Sam asks him.

Dean sighs. “You really sure about this, Sam?”

“No.” He squeezes his eyes shut. They throb with tiredness. “But I gotta know.”

When he opens them again, Dean isn’t scowling at him. He just looks tired, too, and kinda sad. “Okay, Sammy,” he says. “Just—if something was going on? If he was screwing with you, doing something to you? You’d tell me, right?”

Sam resists the urge to close his eyes again. “Yeah, Dean,” he says. “I’d tell you.”

It’s half true. Sam would tell him, if he had any idea what to say.

Dean looks at him a moment longer before plastering on a smile. “Anyway,” he says. “You can show our guest to his suite. Tell him we don’t do room service.”

Sam manages a faint imitation of a laugh, and goes to find Lucifer.

He’s sitting in the map room with Cas, apparently ignoring him in favor of pushing the markers on the table idly around the States. Sam clears his throat.

Lucifer looks up, but doesn’t say anything.

“We, uh.” Sam swallows. “We made up a room for you. You should—you know, if you wanna get some sleep.” He frowns, realizing he doesn’t exactly know the protocol for dealing with ex-prisoners who are still sort-of-prisoners but in a slightly less prison-y way. For all that some part of him he doesn’t want to examine too closely recoils from the idea of locking Lucifer back in the dungeon, at least he would’ve known what to do.

Lucifer just shrugs. “Okay,” he says, and gets to his feet to follow Sam down the corridor. He doesn’t smirk; doesn’t show any measure of satisfaction with the measure of freedom he’s being given, though maybe he’s just hiding it well.

Sam doesn’t think so, though. There’s none of the _I-know-something-you-don’t-know_ left in his eyes.

When Sam says, “This is it,” and gestures at the door, he just nods and shuts himself inside without a word.

Sam guesses it should keep him awake at night, having the Devil just down the corridor. He’s too dog-tired to dwell on it, though, plus he’d be willing to bet he can grab his gun quicker than Lucifer can try to pull anything in his human form. It’s lights out almost the moment his head hits the pillow.

After an indefinite interval, something jolts him awake and he sits bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding. Fading wisps of dream swirl around inside his head. It’s the same stuff he’s seen in his visions. The rush of light leaving him. The soft calm dark. Rowena’s voice: _It has to be you._

At first, he doesn’t know what woke him. The bunker’s quiet save for the faint, tinny jangle of Dean’s music through the wall (a sure sign he’s having trouble sleeping), and when he pokes his head out into the corridor, the lights are out. Then a muffled noise reaches him through the door at the end of the hall.

Not the one he’s expecting, and he can’t make out the words. It isn’t Dean, crying out in the midst of a nightmare. It’s Lucifer, talking in his sleep again.

Unsettling to think that he isn’t just reliving Lucifer’s memories; they’re both reliving them at the same time. Like there’s still some kind of a connection between them, like Sam never truly disentangled his soul from the icy filaments of Lucifer’s grace.

Only Lucifer doesn’t have any grace anymore.

Do angels sprout souls out of nowhere, when they fall? Cas said there was a human soul in there, so maybe they do. But then, what happens when they turn back?

Through the wall, the low rise and fall of Lucifer’s voice drops off into silence. Sam shakes the thoughts away.

He climbs back into bed, closes his eyes, and determinedly doesn’t think about his dreams. Unsurprisingly, sleep doesn’t come back to him.

Maybe half an hour later, he gives up and decides it’s close enough to morning to count. He pulls on a pair of sweatpants and heads for the kitchen to make coffee. He’s hovering in the door of the library, hesitating over his first sip of scalding-hot joe, when a voice says, “Hello, Sam,” out of the darkness.

He starts a little, narrowly avoiding slopping coffee out of the cup, then steadies himself and flips on the light. 

“Cas.” He’s sitting on one of the chairs, posture a little stiff, Dean’s laptop in front of him. (And yeah, the fact that he’s touching it without latex gloves makes him a braver man than Sam.) On the screen, a kitten chases a laser pointer in circles until it falls on its ass. “Dude, you scared the crap out of me.”

Cas nods, looking solemn. “My apologies.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Sam claps him on the shoulder as he passes, folding into one of the chairs on the other side of the table.

“It’s early,” Cas says. He cocks his head, and the gesture unbalances Sam a little, because he’s seen Lucifer look at him like that so often lately he isn’t sure who reminds him of who anymore. At least if his discomfort shows on his face, Cas doesn’t mention it. 

Sam shrugs. “Yeah. Yesterday was kind of… a lot to think about, I guess.” 

“Yes.” Cas peers at him over the laptop screen. “But it went well. Dean and I got the book, and you were able to trap Rowena.” He frowns a little. “Lucifer was… helpful.”

“Well, it worked,” Sam says, keeping his voice as noncommittal as he can.

“He kept his word.”

Sam hunches in on himself, clutching his steaming coffee mug in both hands. “Yeah, well, he’s done that before. It doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

“I’m not suggesting we should.” Cas’s forehead creases, and Sam realizes he must be thinking about Hell. About how he let Lucifer out of the Cage, and inadvertently put him in a position to get that second ‘yes’ out of Sam. About how Lucifer might’ve been running around burning humanity to ashes right now, if Amara hadn’t been stronger than he was.

Not that Sam can blame him for dwelling on it. He knows they’ve all screwed up big-time in their turns, and he knows there’s no point beating yourself up after the fact. 

He also knows that sometimes, there’s no point trying not to.

“Hey,” he says, softly. “I wasn’t talking about—”

“I know.” Cas is still frowning, but his eyes have unfocused a little, his expression distant. “We should still be careful. But becoming human—it’s a great change of perspective. After Metatron took my grace, I—the world seemed a very different place. I’d once considered myself in a position to replace God; and then I was forced to rely on humans, on _other_ humans, to get by. I had to look at them from their own level. I don’t think that ever really went away, once I’d experienced it.”

“Even though you can’t taste PB&J anymore?”

Cas gives him a tiny smile. “Even though.”

Sam returns it, but after a moment, he’s frowning at his coffee again. “So what are you saying?” he asks. “You think Lucifer might have gotten a—change of perspective, too?”

“I think he’s still Lucifer.” Cas pauses. “But last night, you argued that we shouldn’t lock him back up.” His gaze is intent on Sam’s face, and Sam feels suddenly trapped by it, hunching in on himself. Cas may not be Mr. Perceptive, but once he’s figured out something’s wrong, he rarely bothers treading carefully around it. He’s picking his words here, waiting to see how Sam reacts. Which probably means he thinks that’s a big deal.

Sam looks away. “Well, he isn’t gonna slip up if he thinks we’re watching him, right? Hell, he can’t slip up if he’s stuck in the dungeon.”

“That’s true,” Cas says, carefully, and he doesn’t say anything else, just looks thoughtful.

 

\----

 

The problem is, Lucifer doesn’t slip up. He doesn’t do much of anything, actually.

Most of the time, he stays shut away in the room Dean made up for him. He stays quiet, too. The room doesn’t have a TV, and there’s no way they’re giving the Devil internet privileges, and none of the books from the library have gone missing, so Sam can’t begin to guess what he does in there all day. He looks distant when he does emerge, shuffling as far as the kitchen to collect food and then returning with it to his room—which, okay, is probably for the best, because Sam doesn’t want to imagine the dinner table conversation if he decided to join them—or drifting aimlessly around the areas of the bunker that aren’t locked down.

The Book of the Damned sits in a warded drawer in the library. Sam’s shut the box in there, too, having given up on trying to decipher it. Right now, figuring out what Lucifer’s up to seems more important.

Sometimes Lucifer’s eyes wander toward the drawer, but he makes no move to open it.

The days drag on like that. Eventually, Sam stops holding his breath. He gets used to the silence.

He just isn’t sure it’s any better than before, when Lucifer was taunting him and bringing out the armchair psychoanalysis. At least that was familiar. This, the way Lucifer just fades into the background—it’s weird. And when Sam thinks too hard about it, he still feels this uncomfortable knot in his guts, something that has less to do with fear and more to do with the nights he wakes up simultaneously hard and feeling like he’s about to hurl, the ghost of Lucifer’s skin under his hands.

It’s just that he lost control, that night; let himself be pushed until he snapped, even though he knew it wasn’t gonna fix anything. He knew Lucifer was pulling his strings, and he did it anyway.

Though, if that’s all that’s bothering him, then how come Lucifer doesn’t look much like he’s in control of anything right now?

Every time Sam pushes the thought down, it pops up somewhere else, like a game of mental Whack-A-Mole. 

He catches himself standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, distracted halfway through shaving, frowning at his reflection. Trying, for some reason, to remember what he looked like in the mirror when Lucifer was possessing him and they talked that way. If he looked any different. If he looks different, now.

He’s so deep in his reverie that the sound of the door makes him start. He nicks his cheek with the razor, and presses his thumb over the bead of blood before he turns to glare at Dean.

“Dude,” he’s saying as he turns, “are you ever gonna learn to knock?”

Then he goes still, because it isn’t Dean standing in the doorway—it’s Lucifer, barefoot and clutching a towel in front of his chest. Just for a half-second, some small, insane part of Sam’s brain thinks, _He needs socks._

Lucifer frowns. “You weren’t making any noise,” he says. “I thought it was empty.” It’s startling to hear him explain himself. Like this is anywhere near the normal situation it looks like; like he’s a person, and this is just one of those mildly embarrassing situations that happen to normal people when they have guests. His eyes dart from Sam to the mirror and back again, not settling.

“Gimme a sec,” Sam says. It comes out strained. “I’ll get out of your way.”

Apparently that’s the wrong thing to say, because the uncertain expression on Lucifer’s face hardens. He looks Sam in the face, eyes as wintry-cold as Sam’s ever seen them. 

“No need to be shy, Sam,” he says. “I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed.”

Sam blinks back at him. Lucifer hovers in the doorway a moment longer, then squares his shoulders and steps into the bathroom, hanging up his towel on a peg. Then he starts to unbutton his shirt. Cuffs first. 

The marks on his wrists are starting to heal up, the angry red fading to purple and yellow bruising. Sam can’t help looking, caught somewhere between nausea and relief, and then he realizes Lucifer’s looking at him looking. 

It isn’t exactly a challenge, the way he looks back. It isn’t exactly not one, either. 

He’s _angry_ , Sam realizes.

Somehow, the thought doesn’t scare him. It’s separate from the well of instinctual terror Sam knows is back there somewhere, stored up over the years he spent in the Cage, trapped in the cold incandescence of an archangel’s fury.

It seems too obvious that this is… not that. The worst things Lucifer can throw at him now are words; the most he can do is stare Sam down with stubborn, helpless human rage. It’s real, though. Realer than the smartass act Lucifer put on when he first got here; realer than his quiet acquiescence in helping them catch Rowena. Suddenly, Sam can see the cracks. 

Part of him wants to dig his fingers in and pull the pieces apart, ask the questions that would make Lucifer lash out at him and might just make him give away why he’s here. He thinks maybe he could do it, if he just pushed a little.

The other part wins; the part that averts its eyes and ducks its head and wishes it didn’t know what Lucifer dreams about. Sam flees from the bathroom with shaving foam still on his face.

 

\----

 

They avoid each other as much as possible, the rest of the day. At least, Sam avoids Lucifer as best he can. When he’s in the kitchen, washing his plate after forcing down breakfast, he hears the door open behind him and turns on his heel to find it swinging open, footsteps retreating down the corridor. So he figures Lucifer’s avoiding him, too.

Lucifer doesn’t emerge from his room for food, and nobody seems much inclined to go knock the door. 

Part of Sam, the same part that wanted to stay and push for answers this morning, thinks that maybe he should. But when Dean raises an eyebrow and says, “So, what, Satan’s too good for my cooking now?” that part shrinks in on itself.

Sam looks down. “If he wants to sulk, let him sulk.”

Dean shrugs and makes an _oh-well_ face, and starts to dish out mashed potatoes.

It’s only late that night, after Dean has turned in and Cas holed up somewhere with Sam’s laptop, that Sam runs into Lucifer again. 

He doesn’t mean to. It’s just that he can’t get to sleep, and he’s pretty sure he left the book he was reading in the library, and when he goes hunting for it, he finds Lucifer instead, his feet up on the table and a half-empty bottle from Dean’s whiskey stash in his hand.

There’s nothing relaxed about the picture, which makes Sam think the feet on the table are a deliberate piss-off-the-Winchesters gesture.

Lucifer’s eyes take a moment to focus in on his face, so that bottle probably wasn’t half-empty when he found it. Or maybe it’s just that Lucifer isn’t used to booze. After all, before he got humanized, he wasn’t like Crowley or Ruby, clinging to French fries or Scotch out of nostalgia for a remembered human self. He wasn’t even like Cas, eating human food and drinking beers out of curiosity, or because he understands on some level that it’s a thing families do together. He probably hasn’t ever gotten drunk before.

His eyes are shadowed in the lamplight, but Sam can feel his glare. He decides he’ll get his book in the morning and turns for the door.

“Funny, isn’t it?” says Lucifer’s voice behind him. It’s slow, careful, but he isn’t slurring his words. 

Sam stills; turns back to face him.

“Everything we’ve been through,” Lucifer goes on. “Everything we’ve done to each other, and it’s a quick screw in your basement that stops you looking me in the eye. Who’d’ve thunk it, right?”

It’s almost a sneer, and when Sam steps back into the room, Lucifer’s sitting up in his chair, all pretense of relaxation forgotten. The circle of lamplight illuminates his face. He’s smiling again—one of those smirks without an ounce of amusement behind it. Anger glints like ice in his pale eyes.

At the sight of it, some inner part of Sam flinches. Not fear; something he’s afraid to put a name to.

It only lasts a second; then his own anger surges up like lava. 

“Everything we’ve done _to each other_?” he bites out, struggling to keep his voice level. “You think there’s any comparison? You think anything that’s happened makes us even?”

Lucifer shrugs, gesturing vaguely with the hand that isn’t holding the bottle. His grip on it is white-knuckled, though. “You said it, not me.”

Sam stalks to the table, leans over, and this time, he can’t bring himself to feel a single twinge of guilt when Lucifer ducks out from under his shadow. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t fucking do that. For once in your damn life say what you mean and don’t—play with me.”

“Fine.” Lucifer looks balefully up at him. “Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten, Sam. You were supposed to be on my side. You were supposed to understand, remember? _You_ were supposed to be the one creature on this sorry earth that could. And you betrayed me. You tossed me back into that cage with Michael, to rot for—well, eternity, I guess. That was what it was supposed to be, right?”

“Yeah, it was!” Sam barely contains himself from sweeping the damn lamp of the table, suddenly finding Dean’s penchant for smashing stuff up when he’s angry a lot more understandable. 

“You saying that’s nothing?”

“Compared to what you did?” Sam shakes his head. “When we were down there, you—I don’t even really know what you did to me. What you did to my mind. There aren’t words for it. I didn’t think I was ever gonna put myself back together. I don’t even know if I did. I was just human in that place, and you—” He breaks off, swallowing down the bile that rises up in the back of his throat at the memory. “You had a choice; I didn’t.”

Just for a second, Lucifer looks mildly stunned. It occurs to Sam that he’s never had the chance to say that to him before. It doesn’t feel as good as he’d imagined.

Then Lucifer’s eyes narrow. “You had a choice the other night.”

 _Don’t_ , Sam wants to say. _Don’t you turn that back on me. You don’t get to do that._

Some sick feeling of wrongness doesn’t let him. Instead he says, “So did you.”

Lucifer just cocks his head, like he’s asking, _Really?_

Sam swallows hard. “What the hell are you saying?” he says. “That was some kind of a test, and I failed? Because last time I checked, you didn’t get to play judge and jury.”

Lucifer’s eyes flash. “But you do?” he says, mocking, and he takes another gulp from the whiskey bottle and slams it down on the table hard enough that Dean is probably gonna have a shitfit about the varnish in the morning.

When he lets it go, his hand is trembling.

Sam’s adrenaline rush drains away, all at once. It leaves a cold hollow behind. 

Sam knows what he’s angry with. The being that promised him he was precious and special until he went off-script, then ripped his mind apart from the inside out like it was a wet paper bag. The cold sun of a creature that focused all of its power on one little human soul, like burning an ant with a magnifying glass.

This is—not that. This is a cornered animal lashing out at whatever gets near it. This is attack as the best form of defense. There’s no satisfaction in attacking back.

With a sigh, Sam circles to the other side of the table and pulls out the chair next to Lucifer’s, sitting just far enough away to be sure they won’t accidentally bump elbows.

Lucifer gives him a suspicious look; picks up the bottle again and clutches it in front of his chest.

Sam doesn’t look away. “Anyway,” he says. “It isn’t about that. About—the other night, I mean.”

He can’t help but notice the scornful twist of Lucifer’s mouth—and yeah, okay, maybe it is a little pathetic that he can’t even bring himself to put what happened into words. But _a little pathetic_ pales into insignificance beside the rest of it. Sam isn’t gonna let himself start believing he deserves Lucifer’s scorn.

“Really,” Lucifer says, not letting him dwell on the thought. It’s pure sarcasm, not a question. “Because if it isn’t that, I’m having a hard time figuring out what it _is_. The Apocalypse—you said yes in the end. The Cage—you came right back to Hell when you needed my help. You had me locked up in the basement—which, by the way, kinky—and you still couldn’t stay away. But now you run and hide? Kinda difficult not to make the connection.”

Sam lets his head fall forward into his hands. “It’s not that simple.”

“Oh, I think it is.” Lucifer sways a little on his chair, but his gaze is steady, sharp. “I think you’re right back where you were six years ago. Ashamed of what you want.” It comes out a little too forceful, bitterness in the way he bites off the end of his sentence.

Even with everything he keeps telling himself, everything he damn well knows is true, Sam can’t help it. He feels that twist of not-exactly-guilt in his guts.

He shoves it down hard. Hesitates a moment, then leans over and plucks the whiskey bottle out of Lucifer’s hands. Lucifer raises an eyebrow, but surrenders it without complaint. 

Sam takes a pull and sets the bottle back on the table, equidistant from the both of them. For a moment, he just looks at it.

He’s gonna have to face this thing. Even if he can’t fix it, avoidance is screwing him up inside, feeding that gnawing shameful feeling. He’s gonna have to say something, do something.

“I just—” he begins, and then breaks off. Lucifer is looking straight at him now, though, his glare having lessened a little in intensity. “I’m not the same person I was six years ago. You know that. Hell, you made a point out of telling me that. And most of the crap that happened to me—you were there.” _You did it to me_ , he doesn’t say. “Even back then—I wasn’t what you wanted me to be. So what’s your point?” He shakes his head. “What do you actually want from me?”

Lucifer quirks a mirthless smile and reaches for the whiskey bottle again, but stops short of drinking from it, just turning it between his hands. “You really don’t know,” he says, at length. It sounds more like a realization than a question.

“No,” Sam says. “I really don’t.”

Lucifer looks thoughtful, and for a moment, Sam actually thinks he’s about to get some kind of an explanation. But he just sets the liquor bottle down and slides it across the table. His hand lingers, so that when Sam leans in to take it, their fingers brush.

Sam goes very still. His gaze flicks from the bottle to Lucifer’s face—curious again now, the anger on the back burner—and then back. He kind of knows what’s going to happen next before Lucifer leans into his space and presses their lips together.

It’s chaste, no intent behind it, and it only lasts a second. Sam doesn’t even get time to flinch. He’s still sitting frozen in his chair when Lucifer pulls away and gets to his feet, the loud scrape of his chair on the library floor breaking the silence. 

“Does that answer your question?” Lucifer says. It’s soft, spoken without the bitterness Sam expects. Something less obvious than that.

Lucifer doesn’t give him time to answer, though; just turns away and makes his way to the door, weaving a little as he goes.


	10. Chapter 10

Sam sits at the table for a long time afterward. He pulls the whiskey bottle toward him and drinks. 

Not enough to make his head swim, just enough to make his thoughts a little harder to corral. He can’t stop turning that whole conversation over in his head. And the kiss—if you can even call it that. Sam doesn’t really know what it was, truth be told. It definitely didn’t answer his question.

Sam gets to his feet, eventually, deciding that he probably isn’t gonna sleep much, but at least if he’s freaking out quietly in his bedroom, Dean won’t walk in and demand to know what’s up. He makes his way down the corridor without turning on the light, one hand on the wall. It’s only when he reaches for the door handle and the sound of snoring stops him in his tracks that he realizes he’s come too far. And that apparently the Devil snores when he’s had too much to drink.

Sam hovers there for a moment, his hand still on the door handle. Then he turns back and heads for his own room, locking the door behind him.

 

\----

 

The next time they actually speak, it’s night again. Sam’s rooting around in the fridge for something to make a sandwich out of, because he knows he won’t sleep if he goes to bed, and dinner seems like a long time ago right now. He doesn’t look up when he hears the door open, just calls, “Dude, what did you do with the mayonnaise? Did you even buy the low-fat kind like I asked?”

“Dean went to bed,” Lucifer says behind him, and Sam starts a little, inadvertently hitting his head on the refrigerator door.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people.” He turns around frowning, rubbing the top of his head, to find Lucifer leaning against the work surface, watching him. Sam braces himself for a barbed comment, a too-searching question that will make his insides knot up with something too close to guilt for comfort.

“You should listen to what’s going on around you,” Lucifer points out, mildly. “I thought hunters were supposed to be alert.” His gaze is steady, level, and he makes no move to leave.

Maybe he feels easier being around Sam without Dean or Cas hanging around. Maybe it’s just that everything feels a little blurrier, a little less real, late at night when you know you should be sleeping. Either way, Lucifer doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t prod at him, just stands there watching him. Sam thinks maybe this is a truce.

That has to be a good thing, right? If Lucifer’s quit trying to get at him, maybe that means he’s starting to let his guard down. Maybe he’ll give away what he wants with the book, or the box, sometime soon.

Sam guesses he should probably encourage it. “Not while I’m standing in Dean’s kitchen trying to make a sandwich,” he points out. He sighs, then looks back at the refrigerator. “You, uh. You want something, while I’m here? You didn’t show for dinner.”

Lucifer looks faintly surprised, like he wasn’t even thinking about food when he headed for the kitchen. After a moment, though, he inclines his head. “Sure,” he says. “Why not?”

Sam turns back to the fridge.

That’s when Lucifer adds, “ _Dean’s_ kitchen?”

Sam feels his shoulders go tense. “Our kitchen,” he says, shortly. “You know what I mean.”

Lucifer gives a thoughtful hum, but doesn’t push the subject. It doesn’t make Sam feel any more comfortable. He finally retrieves the mayonnaise, and distracts himself with slapping together a couple slices of turkey on rye, slicing up the lettuce and tomato that Dean grudgingly adds to their weekly grocery haul, as much because he needs something else to do with his hands as because he’s feeling the urge for vitamins. 

It feels a little surreal, standing here making a midnight snack like Lucifer is just some other visitor, somebody he might sit down with to discuss the latest case or watch TV. Sam doesn’t know what to say to make it any less weird, though, so he just hunts out some plates and sets the sandwiches down on the kitchen table. Lucifer just looks at them for a second before he pulls out a chair, the furthest one from where Sam is standing.

Still keeping his distance, at least a little. Sam tries hard not to think about why.

It’s Lucifer who breaks the awkward silence a couple minutes later, though, looking up from his sandwich and announcing, “This is… actually good.”

Sam really doesn’t know what to say to that, so he gives a one-shouldered shrug. “Dean isn’t the only one who knows his way around a kitchen.”

Lucifer regards him, still thoughtful. He pauses a moment before he speaks, like he isn’t sure whether to say the next thing on his mind. Then he cocks his head and says, “The heart of the home. That’s what humans call it, right?”

Sam blinks. “Uh. Yeah?”

“Even Castiel hung out here, inside his head.” Lucifer meets his eyes. “But you still seemed more comfortable with the chains and devil’s traps in the dungeon.”

Sam sets down his sandwich, appetite suddenly gone. Honestly, it’s been a while since he gave in and started thinking of the bunker as _home_ , mostly because he was desperate for a place to bring Dean home to after he got demonized. But he still cut and ran the moment Lucifer showed up.

He crosses his arms. “Yeah, well, maybe it isn’t the bunker that’s making me uncomfortable.”

Lucifer shrugs.

Maybe Sam should just demand to know what he’s getting at. God knows he’s sick of the cryptic shit. It’s just that he isn’t sure the answer would be any better.

He’s saved from having to think about it by the kitchen door opening again.

Cas is standing in the doorway, frowning down at the two of them. “I heard talking,” he explains, and then just stands there, still looking troubled.

“Everything’s fine, Cas,” Sam assures him. Cas nods but doesn’t move, and the silence stretches out painfully. Sam nods at his plate. “You, uh. You want something too? I could make—”

“No. Thank you.”

Lucifer doesn’t seem to have been paying much attention until now, but he gets abruptly to his feet, his expression unreadable. “I’m going to bed,” he says. Cas steps aside to let him out the door.

Sam looks up. “You okay, Cas?”

“Yes.” For a moment, Cas looks like he’s about to say something more, but then he just turns and retrieves two beers from the fridge. He hands one to Sam without a word, and Sam cracks a small smile. 

“Celebrating something?”

Cas shakes his head, his usual puzzled little frown putting in an appearance. “It can be frustrating,” he says, “being the only one who doesn’t need sleep. Dean says this relaxes him.”

So Dean and Cas are back on beer-and-bonding terms. Sam kind of got that from the way they’ve been around each other recently, though an uneasy part of him figures it might have more to do with mutual worrying about him than any forgiveness on Dean’s part. That’s usually how this works between the three of them. There’s no big therapy session, nothing really gets worked out; it just takes a backseat to whatever pile of crap the universe decides to dump on them next.

Sam manages a small smile. “Yeah?” he says. “Well, just be grateful that’s the only relaxation technique Dean decided to show you. Some of the stuff on his computer…”

Cas looks mystified for half a second, before he figures out the joke and makes a face. “I am,” he says. “Thank you.”

He takes Lucifer’s vacated chair, and they sit at the table drinking in relatively companionable silence. A couple times, Cas looks like he’s about to ask Sam what was going on back there, but he doesn’t. 

Sam doesn’t volunteer any information. It isn’t like he even knows for sure himself.

 

\----

 

For some reason, Lucifer stops avoiding him, after that. At least, he stops spending so much time locked away in the guest bedroom. ( _Plotting_ , Dean insists, _he’s definitely plotting_ , but Sam is less and less sure that Lucifer looks like a guy who knows what he wants. Sam doesn’t catch him trying to look at the Book of the Damned, and the spell hasn’t pinged so for.) A couple times, he even settles down near Sam in one of the communal areas of the bunker, looking like he doesn’t know whether to bolt or stick around and study the funny little humans like an exhibit in a zoo. 

He’ll pick up a book and page through it without reading, or steal one of Sam’s pens or a marker from the map table to fidget with, like he doesn’t know what to do with hands now they’re free. Touching stuff he shouldn’t be touching has always been Lucifer’s thing—he’s tactile, pretty much boundary-free—but this is different. More like he’s trying to distract himself from something.

It probably has to do with the conversation they didn’t really have in the kitchen. Sam isn’t sure it’s a conversation he wants to have, but then he isn’t sure of much right now. He just feels keyed-up, this weird anticipatory feeling itching under his skin, but whether what’s coming is a fight or another awkward non-talk or Lucifer deciding he wants to cut out on his own and having to be shoved back in the basement, he couldn’t start to guess.

It comes a few days later. At night, which he’s starting to get used to.

Sam takes a shower before bed, pulls on his sweatpants and brushes his teeth in the communal bathroom. He’s avoiding his own eyes in the mirror when it happens.

He feels the Book of the Damned opening, sees it like it’s right before his eyes. The pages turn, then come to a halt at an unfamiliar spell. Without the codex, the writing on the page makes no sense to him, but he’d recognize the pages that refer to the Mark of Cain anywhere, after all the time he spent staring at them over Rowena’s shoulder. This is something else.

Sam frowns and spits toothpaste in the sink. He hovers in front of the bathroom doorway for a moment, not sure whether to run to the library and try to catch Lucifer red-handed, because at least that way he’d have to admit he’s up to something, or to let him think he’s gotten away with it and see what he does next.

Only, the image in his mind’s eye disappears almost as fast as it came. Lucifer just looks at the page for a moment, and then the book closes again. And when Sam emerges from the bathroom, Lucifer’s in the corridor outside, heading straight for him. He comes to a stop in front of Sam and just stands there barefoot, hair sticking up in a dozen different directions, scrubbing a hand through it when he finally lays eyes on Sam in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture.

Though maybe it isn’t so uncharacteristic lately.

The thought unsettles him, the way re-evaluating Lucifer through a human lens always does.

“What’s up?” he asks, to distract himself from it. 

Lucifer doesn’t answer for a long moment. He looks back at Sam with a frown, an assessing look with none of his old coolness. Eventually, he comes out with, “I want to talk to you.”

Sam hesitates, glancing down the corridor. They’re a little too close to Dean’s bedroom door for comfort. After a second, he nods and opens the door to his own room, motioning Lucifer to follow him inside.

Not an invitation he ever thought he’d find himself extending. Even now, allowing Lucifer into his space makes discomfort prickle at the base of his skull. Some old survival instinct tells him to put himself nearest the door. He manages to tamp it down, but not before he notices Lucifer’s standing in the same spot Sam’s hindbrain is telling him to choose, not looking any more comfortable than Sam feels.

Fuck, this is all such a mess.

“What did you wanna talk to me about?” he asks, tiredly.

Lucifer frowns and doesn’t answer right away. 

“Look,” Sam says. “I don’t know what’s going on here, all of this dancing around, but if you have something to say, will you please just say it?” There’s a pleading note in his voice.

Lucifer’s silent a moment longer, looking carefully into his face. A couple weeks ago, the same look would have struck Sam as calculating, inhuman, but it now it seems uncertain, even wary. Something in him shifts uncomfortably at the thought.

“Why did you let me out?” Lucifer asks, then. His gaze flicks downward.

Sam blinks. “Of the dungeon?”

“Pretty sure that’s the only time that needs an answer.”

“I guess so.” Sam sighs and sits heavily on the edge of his mattress, leaving Lucifer still hovering in the middle of the room. After a second, he gives in and nods at the spot beside him. 

Lucifer sits down cautiously, leaving enough space between them to avoid accidental touching, just like Sam did the other day. He doesn’t say anything else, just waits.

Sam frowns, trying to marshal his thoughts into some kind of order. “I don’t know,” he admits, in the end. “I guess part of me felt bad locking you back in there after—” He falters; swallows hard. “—after you helped us with Rowena.”

Lucifer’s expression is impassive. “Surely that doesn’t cancel out all the reasons you have to hate me. You seemed pretty attached to those, the other day.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Sam breathes out through his nose, rubbing at his temples to soothe a headache that hasn’t arrived yet. “That isn’t the only reason. I still don’t know what your game is, what you want with me. I wanted to see what you were gonna do next, because I don’t think you were ever gonna tell me.”

“And do you have me all figured out now?” There’s a prickly note beneath the amusement, something that would’ve had Sam on high alert not so long ago. 

“No,” Sam concedes. He pauses. “I guess maybe a part of me was just hoping… Look, I’m not saying I trust you. I’m not saying I ever will. But you’re human now. I was just hoping that you wouldn’t screw us over. That you’d, I don’t know, try to do the right thing, or something.” The admission kind of takes him by surprise; not something he’s let himself think before now. But then, Lucifer always did know how to dig down into the hidden-away parts of his consciousness. Maybe appealing to his hope instead of his fear is just more of the same. He stares down at his hands, not daring to look Lucifer in the eye.

There’s no sudden flip of the switch, though, no triumph or contempt. Lucifer just says, slowly, “You thought being less dangerous would make me better? Humans are cruel in their helplessness all the time.”

He might’ve come out with that line during the apocalypse, but it’s soft, thoughtful; not a _gotcha_. And instead of giving up in frustration, Sam finds himself saying, “Yeah, but they can change. Even ones who used to be—something else.”

“Monsters, you mean.” Sam blinks at the nonchalance of it, but Lucifer just shrugs. “We’ve both been called that, Sam. And I know that’s what you think.” He pauses, apparently mulling something over, then looks Sam in the eyes. “The vision I had. The one I didn’t tell you about.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. _What_ , now _you’re in a sharing mood?_ is his first impulse, but all he says is a soft, “Yeah?”

“I saw you after Gadreel,” Lucifer tells him. “Cassie explaining the residual grace thing to you. How you always keep a little piece of the angel that possessed you. And sure, you had more immediate things to worry about at the time—but you thought about me.”

Sam swallows. He doesn’t answer; just nods.

Lucifer’s frowning again, eyes distant, even though he’s looking at Sam. “I mean, I knew all that. But I didn’t _know_. The visions make things a whole lot clearer.”

Sam nods again. “You don’t just see things through the other person’s eyes. It’s like you’re in their mind. It’s…” He trails off.

“Horrible?” Lucifer finishes for him. One corner of his mouth quirks up, but there’s no amusement in his smile. “All that revulsion. Took me by surprise.”

That makes Sam raise an eyebrow. “Seriously? After—after everything? You thought I’d—?”

“Feel a little more conflicted?” Lucifer cocks his head, smirk still not reaching his eyes. “Hey, in context, can you blame me?”

It’s the closest either of them has come to mentioning that night since their conversation in the library, and Sam feels a reflexive twist of nausea. He pushes it down, though.

“The context being you screwed with my mind for so many years I didn’t even know what was real anymore? No, I wouldn’t call it a surprise that I didn’t want anything to do with you.”

Lucifer holds up a hand. “Hey,” he says. “I get it. After the visions, and—” He makes a vague, encompassing gesture. “—everything? I get it. I can see why you’d want to think like that. Give up the demon blood, kick out the Devil, and you get another chance. You’re all human, you can be saved. Must be comforting.” He pauses, puts his head on one side. “But you’ve been hanging around Castiel for years. You know angels _can_ change, even if most of them won’t. What makes you think humans are any better?”

“Cas has hardly been in Heaven in years,” Sam points out. “He spends his time down here, with me and Dean. He tries to help people. The angels keep telling him he isn’t one of them anymore, and I haven’t exactly seen him trying to get back on their Christmas card list.”

“Huh. So Castiel gets an honorary human badge, just because he really wants to be one of you?”

Sam shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

Lucifer regards him levelly. “I’d take my grace back in a second if I could find it, Sam. By your logic, that means I’m still a monster.”

It should be a dig, but it sounds more like a question. For a moment, Sam struggles to answer it, Lucifer’s quiet curiosity getting to him like it never has before. He doesn’t feel like a lab-rat, or a bug pinned on a board, like he always used to. He just wants to be honest.

What comes out of his mouth, in the end, is, “But you are different. You’re not denying that. You’ve changed.”

He doesn’t expect the small, sad smile Lucifer turns on him before glancing down, or the murmur of, “Yes. I have.”

He doesn’t expect Lucifer to reach over and take his hand, either.

His touch is cool and gentle, but it still makes Sam start. When he looks up, he finds Lucifer watching his face carefully, glancing away when their eyes meet.

He doesn’t look any more certain than Sam feels. This doesn’t feel like another attempt to screw with his head, but that doesn’t mean Sam knows what it _is_. Is it an offer? A challenge? Is it Lucifer trying to tell him something he can’t—for once—put into words?

“Lucifer—” Sam begins, then breaks off. Lucifer looks up at him, giving another one of those not-at-all-amused little smiles when he sees Sam’s face.

“You know,” he says, “you’re thinking so loud I don’t even need my grace to hear you.”

Sam hears himself make a strangled sound, not really a laugh. “So do you know what the hell we’re doing here?”

“No more than you do.” Lucifer pauses, glances down, and Sam realizes he hasn’t pulled his hand away. He’s letting Lucifer hold onto it, stroke slow, careful circles on Sam’s palm with his thumb. “Is that a problem?” 

“Probably should be,” Sam says. At the same time, it shouldn’t even make the Top Ten.

He still doesn’t pull his hand away.

He doesn’t stop it, either, when Lucifer inches toward him, shifting into his space unbearably slow. When Lucifer pauses, their faces too close together to pretend this is just a conversation anymore, it’s Sam who closes the gap.

It’s soft and careful, a contrast to how Sam’s heart beats wildly in his chest and his mind whirls like a fairground ride. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove here or which of them he’s trying to prove it to—but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop.

This is nothing like the last time. They undress each other gently, taking their time. Sam shivers a little when Lucifer’s hand brushes his bare skin, and it isn’t with fear or disgust.

Before the sensation can take hold of him, though, his eyes land on the red marks around Lucifer’s wrists, free from bandages now. There are still faint bruises at his throat. 

Sam reaches out to him, then stops, swallowing hard.

“Sam.” Lucifer’s frowning at him, his voice quiet, like he’s approaching a startled animal. “It’s okay.” He keeps his eyes trained on Sam’s face, like he’s trying to gauge whether that was the right thing to say.

Sam just shakes his head and leans in, pressing his mouth to the curve of Lucifer’s neck like he can erase the bruises with kisses.

He can’t, he shouldn’t want to; but it calms that gnawing feeling in his guts better than anything else.

They don’t fuck, this time. They just lie face-to-face on top of Sam’s bedcovers, moving against one another, trading kisses so soft and undemanding they’re almost chaste, almost nothing at all. Lucifer doesn’t close his eyes when he kisses; he keeps them trained on Sam’s face the whole time, like he’s searching for something. Sam finds himself screwing his own eyes shut in response, like he can escape being seen that way.

He still doesn’t stop.

Lucifer does close his eyes when he comes, with a low, broken sound that might be Sam’s name. When he opens them again, just for the space of a heartbeat, he looks utterly lost.

Sam doesn’t let himself think about it. He wraps a hand around his cock and strokes himself harder, shuts his eyes tight, doesn’t think, _doesn’t think_ , doesn’t stop.

They don’t touch, after.

They lie still, stretched out on Sam’s bed. One of Lucifer’s hands lies palm-up atop the pillow, extended toward Sam but not close enough to brush his skin. He’s still watching Sam’s face like he’s waiting for something. Occasionally, he glances at his hand, the wrist still ringed with red. 

Sam looks away, lets out a sigh and curls up into a sitting position. “We, uh,” he says. “We should get cleaned up.”

Lucifer doesn’t reply, just nods and reaches for his t-shirt. Sam stops him with a hand on his arm. “Use mine,” he says. “I won’t need to put them back on.” He doesn’t want to think about what kinds of questions he’d have to answer if Dean or Cas caught Lucifer wandering the corridors in his birthday suit.

There’s a weird pause before Lucifer blinks and says, “Yeah,” and it occurs belatedly to Sam that maybe he was expecting to sleep here.

That would be dumb, though. Neither of them wants to deal with being caught out and having to try to explain this, right? Anyway, it would be awkward as hell. They wouldn’t actually get any shut-eye.

He glances back at Lucifer, but his expression is shuttered as he cleans himself off with Sam’s sweatpants and pulls his pajamas back on. A couple times, he looks down at his hands, and Sam looks away.

“I’m sorry,” he finds himself saying, just as Lucifer puts his hand on the doorknob. Lucifer turns back to him with that curious tilt of his head. “If you thought—I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry,” he repeats, lamely.

He’s startled when Lucifer turns and crosses back to where he sits on the bed, then leans down and presses a kiss to Sam’s forehead. 

“You don’t have to be, Sam.” He sounds tired. “Goodnight.”

Lucifer heads back to the door, and Sam reaches across to turn out the lamp. 

Before his fingers find the switch, Lucifer stops dead in the middle of the room. Sam frowns up at him. 

“What is it?” he starts to say, but before the words are out his mouth, he notices that Lucifer’s stillness is too complete to be conscious. The realization startles Sam onto his feet. A vision; it has to be. He reaches Lucifer’s side just as his eyes roll back in his head and he crumples, one hand groping uselessly at the wall beside him. 

Sam catches him before he hits the ground, and thank God for that—the last thing anyone needs is for Dean to come running at the sound of a body hitting the floor, and for Sam to have to explain what he’s doing naked with Lucifer in his bedroom at night. He hauls Lucifer back over onto the bed, then checks that he’s breathing okay. 

Lucifer doesn’t move, eyes unseeing, but other than that, he seems fine. Whatever _fine_ means right now. Sam watches him a moment longer, and when nothing changes, turns around to dig in a drawer for a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

By the time he’s pulled them on, Lucifer is stirring. Sam sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, not quite touching him. “Vision?” he asks.

Lucifer blinks up at him, his eyes taking a moment to find Sam’s. When they do, it’s with an expression Sam hasn’t seen in a long, long time. Since the first night Lucifer found him, during the Apocalypse. Just this look of soft, pleased surprise, like the fact of Sam’s existence is a minor miracle.

It’s uncomfortable, and Sam clears his throat. “Lucifer?” he prods. “Was that a vision?”

Lucifer seems to regain himself, and he nods. “You get one too?”

“No.” Sam frowns. “Not yet, anyway.” There’s probably one on its way. He finds himself gripping the edge of the mattress, like he’s trying to steady himself pre-emptively. “What’d you see?”

Lucifer smiles at him. This time, it reaches his eyes. “You.”

Sam sighs. “Don’t start the cryptic stuff again,” he pleads, but Lucifer doesn’t seem to hear him. He raises one of his hands instead, holding it up in front of his face with that same look, half surprise and half satisfaction.

Sam stares at him. Then at the hand he’s holding up. Then back at his face.

“Lucifer?” he says. “Why are you glowing?”


	11. Chapter 11

There are patterns glowing on Lucifer’s skin, scrawled onto his hands and arms and creeping up the sides of his neck, like he’s been tattooed with pure light. It intensifies fast under Sam’s gaze, brightening from the faintest suspicion of light to something that’s definitely there, sharp and defined. It’s silver-blue, almost the color of grace, and Sam feels an uncomfortable flip in his stomach. Lucifer’s eyes take the color and reflect it back at him.

For the first time Sam can remember, he looks like an angel.

The thought hits him a split second before the realization that this is it, what Sam’s been waiting for. This is the other shoe. He shoots to his feet, swallowing around a rising sense of dread.

“You lied to me,” he says, out loud. “You said you were human. You lied.”

“No, Sam.” Lucifer’s still smiling at him. No malice in it, though. It’s an expression Sam’s never seen on his face before, soft and awed, almost beatific. “I was. I am.” He sits up and holds a hand out toward Sam like he’s offering something. “This isn’t grace. Look.”

It takes Sam a moment to steady himself, but he sits back down. 

“It won’t hurt you,” Lucifer tells him, still holding out his hand, and for some insane reason, Sam believes him.

Maybe his brain just hasn’t caught up to the con yet. Maybe it’s still in denial that he’s been this dumb.

Either way, he reaches out and takes Lucifer’s hand. There’s a faint, cool vibration beneath his fingers when they find the lit-up pattern, but that’s all. It doesn’t burn him, doesn’t hurt his eyes to look at. He squints down at it, pulling Lucifer’s hand closer to his face so he can study the pattern more closely.

No: it isn’t just a pattern. It’s writing. 

The same writing that’s on that box in the library.

“It’s a spell,” Sam realizes, with a pang of nausea. “This, that box that arrived here when you did—it’s all part of a spell.” He’d bet money it has to do with that page in the Book of the Damned.

Lucifer nods. “You sound surprised.” That curious tilt of the head again, like he’s surprised, too.

Sam grits his teeth. “You said you didn’t know what was in there.”

“I said I’d never seen it before. I wasn’t lying.”

Sam snorts, and drops Lucifer’s hand like it’s a poisonous snake. “You say that like it means something.” His insides feel all twisted up, the anger he lost after that night in the dungeon suddenly back full force. “You play dumb and you avoid questions and you tell little bits of the truth to give me the wrong idea, and you think it’s all okay because you _weren’t lying_. I can’t believe I thought you—” He breaks off, shaking his head, and gets to his feet. 

He can’t face this right now, whatever it is. He just needs to get to that box before Lucifer does—and before his own vision hits and incapacitates him.

Lucifer is right behind him, catching him with a hand on his bare shoulder. There’s no hint of angelic strength in how hard he holds on, but Sam finds himself stopping anyway. 

Maybe there’s still some shred of hope under the dread and the stupid, stupid feeling of betrayal that holds him back. Maybe Lucifer really has driven him insane.

“I wasn’t lying,” Lucifer repeats, more emphatic now. “What I said to you tonight—it was true. All of it.”

His eyes are wide, fixed on Sam’s. Sam can’t bear to look at them. “Let me guess,” he says, bitterly. “There’s a ‘but’.”

Lucifer pauses, then shakes his head. “It’s easier if I show you,” he says, and starts to lead Sam toward the library.

Which is weird in itself, because whatever his plan is, surely he should be trying to keep Sam from interfering with it, not dragging him along for the ride? Sam follows him down the corridor, flipping between nightmare scenarios in his head. Maybe there’s some kind of supernatural weapon in the box? Some way of breaking through to the Empty, where they locked what was left of Amara away, so Lucifer can try to get his grace back?

But if that’s the case, why the hell did Lucifer wait until now to activate the spell? And what the hell has he been doing with Sam in the meantime?

Sam’s head is spinning. He pulls his arm out of Lucifer’s grip when they reach the library, positioning himself in front of the drawer where the box, and the Book of the Damned, are locked away. It’s closed, but the key sits on one of the tables. That must be how Lucifer got to the book earlier. Sam doesn’t remember leaving it out, but maybe Dean or Cas did, sick of waiting for Lucifer to make his move?

He crosses his arms. “I’m not letting you touch it until I know what’s going on,” he warns.

Lucifer gives him another of those little smiles. With the blue-white light coming off of him, it looks unearthly. 

“Like I told you, Sam,” he says, “this is gonna be much easier if you let me show you. And I need the box to do that.” 

Sam keeps glaring at him. 

“There’s nothing in there that will hurt you. Or anybody else. I promise you that.” He looks sincere. 

That shouldn’t mean anything right now. Sam knows that. And yet somehow he can’t shake it off. That might be what makes him relent, in the end. It isn’t like he’ll know what to do until the shoe is done dropping anyway.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he says, as if he has a hope in hell of doing so, and reaches for the key.

Sam sets the box on one of the tables in the library, then takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax. Lucifer has moved to stand beside him. For once, his attention isn’t focused on Sam. He looks at the box like it’s an old friend but doesn’t move to touch it, apparently waiting for Sam’s say-so.

“Okay,” Sam gets out. “Show me—whatever you gotta show me.”

Lucifer doesn’t reach for the box right away. Instead, he takes Sam’s hand, fingers encircling his wrist, sets it palm-down on top of the box and covers it with his own. Then he just—waits.

Sam’s examined the box maybe a dozen times already, and it doesn’t look any different, even in the eerie blue-white glow. The wood is warm beneath his hand, the rough edges of the carvings scratching his palm. It doesn’t do anything.

“Huh.”

Sam blinks and turns to look at Lucifer, who’s frowning down at the box in… disappointment? “Huh?” he echoes. “What’s happening?”

“I was hoping this would help trigger your vision a little faster. Like I said, showing’s easier than telling.” Lucifer sighs and looks up at Sam. “I guess I’ll have to do it the other way. Sorry, Sam. You’re not gonna like this.”

“Like what?” Sam asks, blinking in confusion. “What was I supposed to—?”

He’s cut off by Lucifer letting go of his hand, moving to press his own fingertips to the lid of the box. The motion is gentle, almost like he’s petting a cat. He begins to speak, then: the low guttural syllables of Enochian that Sam has never really gotten used to, no matter how many times he’s heard them from Cas, ancient and alien at the same time.

The box begins to glow, the writing carved into the lid and the sides lighting up with that same cold silver-blue. There’s a _snick_ like a catch opening.

“What the hell?” Sam starts to say, and then the vision hits him like a freight train.

 

_The Darkness is so peaceful. Father never told him it would be like this._

_He doesn’t want to leave._

_He isn’t sure how long he’s been here, how long since Amara wrenched him from his vessel and swallowed him up. It doesn’t seem that important. Time’s abstract here; there’s no urgency. He thought he had forgotten how to live without fire in his belly, without anger and betrayal and the need to prove himself right burning through every fiber of his being. He would’ve found it hard to imagine what that might feel like, if he’d ever tried._

_The answer is—soft. It’s as tranquil as Heaven was in the old days, but Heaven is peaceful like a frozen lake is peaceful. A bright, cold, hard kind of peace. It’s warm here in the dark, like being cradled in the womb of the earth. He imagines this is what having a mother must feel like._

_His old existence seems far away, seen through a mist that renders it vague and confusing. Fury was all that he had, all that he was, for so long, and now he can’t remember precisely what it felt like. The old realities slip like water from his grasp. Even thinking about it too hard is exhausting, all that anger and hate and pain._

__So much anger _. That was what Amara said before she consumed him. Her eyes were full of pity._

_He does not know how long he drifts here; only that he doesn’t want to leave._

_A voice breaks the silence, a mere suggestion of sound at first. He tries to ignore it, but it grows insistently louder, and eventually he can make out the words, whether or not he wants to hear them. It’s Enochian. The voice of one of his siblings, then—though not that of anyone who matters. He’d know Michael’s voice anywhere. Still, a thread of unease insinuates itself into his peace, and the voice grows ever louder._

_Eventually the name comes to him. Castiel. He suspects he should have noticed sooner. They did share a vessel for a short time, after all. His unease grows, though somehow, he can’t find it in himself to do anything about it. Perhaps, if he waits, the voice will go away._

_Abruptly, the voice stops. There is a long moment of silence._

_The Darkness shivers apart around him._

_It turns to shreds, like a rent veil—and then it is just gone. Sucked away as though into a vacuum, matter through a black hole._

_The loss scatters them all. He sees them falling back into the world around him, the glowing orbs of human souls and the bright white streams of light that are his lesser siblings._

_This must have been what it looked like when the angels were thrown from Heaven. It surprises him a little, that the Darkness could contain them all. It was so quiet, he never felt as though anybody else was there at all._

_He has only a moment to wonder at it. He is flung back into the world, then. It is too cold, too loud, too solid, and the daylight cuts like a knife. He’s relieved when he loses consciousness._

_An indefinite time later he wakes, on his back on the ground, in his old vessel._

_That makes no sense. Amara pulled him from Sam Winchester’s body, and Nick must have been burned or buried years ago. But here he is._

_Cautiously, he reaches for a tendril of grace to examine the body._

_He has none._

_The shock of it leaves him gasping, floored and helpless as a sea creature stranded by a tidal wave. He looks up. The sky is gray. His eyes perceive a fraction of its light._

_“Did you do this?” It slips out before he is able to stop himself, and he grits his teeth in anger. The peace and safety of the Darkness have left him weak._

_And yet, when no answer comes, he cannot help but close his eyes and pretend for the space of a human heartbeat that he is still there. He is so very tired._

_He sits up. There’s a crick in his back, and it twinges painfully at the movement. He studies the backs of his hands, the raised veins showing blue through the skin. Human blood flows so close to the surface. He’s long thought their fragility their one saving grace._

_He sits on the ground a while longer, listening to the silence. There seems little point in moving. What is he to do now?_

_Eventually, it starts to rain. The dirt begins to turn to mud beneath him. A fat earthworm wiggles its way out of the ground. He watches it squirm through the wet grass. Having this one small, slow thing to focus on is oddly reassuring. The absurdity of that occurs to him, but distantly. He has fought cosmic battles, held stars in the palm of his hand. Now he sits watching this lowliest of Earth’s creatures and is grateful he does not have to think about anything else._

_Not until the rain soaks his clothing through to the skin, anyway. Then he begins to shiver._

_Perhaps this is one of Father’s lessons. It would help if he knew what the lesson was supposed to be. At least then he’d know what to reject._

_The rain slows and stops. There is a sound of small wings above his head, and a bird arrows down from the pale-gray sky and skewers the earthworm with its beak, spilling pink guts in the mud._

_He climbs to his feet and brushes the wet grass off his jeans as best he can. It’s a great effort._

_“What now?” he wonders aloud, with another glance skyward._

_Receiving no answer, he tramps across the wet field. By the time he reaches its edge, his pants are soaked to the knees. Vaguely, he misses the simplicity of flight—but he’s in no hurry, has nowhere to be. He doesn’t know what he wants._

_A strange realization. After the war in Heaven, the Fall, Michael, Amara, he finally has nobody to fight. And after his too-brief experience of peace, the memory of it all is exhausting._

_Maybe that was the lesson?_

_He walks along the side of the road, lost in thought. A passing car pulls up alongside him, honking its horn. When he shakes his head, the driver gives a bewildered shrug and pulls off again. He keeps walking._

_After an indefinite amount of time, his feet begin to hurt. The water sloshing around inside his boots squelches between his toes. The air dries his clothes out, but the cold doesn’t abate; it seems to have crept through his flesh, right to the bone._

_Cold was always his element. Is this what Sam felt, in his presence?_

_It occurs to him that he can’t go on like this. He wants neither Heaven nor Hell, but the idea of walking the Earth indefinitely is more than he can tolerate._

_He tries a prayer, this time._ If you brought me back, why did you do it? __

_Perhaps there is something that he wants. An answer. It doesn’t come._

_He keeps walking, and eventually another memory finds its way to the surface. Rowena. She’d been all too eager to share her knowledge with him, angling to impress. She talked about the Book of the Damned. There was magic in there older and darker than any she’d seen; older than men or angels, though it had come through a human conduit. It came from the Darkness herself. If there’s any spell in Creation that can influence God Himself, that’s where to find it._

_He’ll get his answer. He’ll make his Father tell him why._

_He stops at the side of the road and thinks. No doubt the book is thoroughly warded. Even if he had his grace, tracking it down would be difficult._

_The witch, though—she should be easy to find. Where would her soul be but Hell? Luckily, he still knows a few summoning spells._

_First, though, he’ll need ingredients, and somewhere to summon her to. For that, he’ll need to find civilization._

_It’s only when he holds up a hand, and the next vehicle to reach him speeds past with a blare of its horn, that it occurs to him that this might be difficult._

_Without money, stocking up on spell ingredients is a pain in the ass. He’ll have to steal. Luckily, he’s good at distractions, charming his way into the good graces of store clerks with a smile, leaving them none the wiser as to what he’s taken while their backs are turned. Candles, herbs, chalk. A plastic cup in place of a chalice. It will have to do._

_The witch flashes black eyes at him when she appears. Three hundred years of human life spent handling dangerous magic, and there was already little distance between woman and demon._

_Human, she was venal. Now, she forgives easily enough at the promise of a title. Queen of the Crossroads, and maybe a higher rank still if she plays her part. She listens, and smiles a little smile._

_“I’ll need some time to find the book,” she says. “Who knows what that useless son of mine has done with it?”_

_He scowls impatiently. “How long?”_

_“How long is a piece of string?” she shrugs, spreads her hands. “I’ll find you when I’m done.”_

_It isn’t as though he has much other choice. “Fine,” he says, and she smiles and turns to leave. “Wait.”_

_Rowena turns on the spot and raises an eyebrow._

_“I’ll need your help with one other thing. Locator spell. It calls for holy oil, and as you can see, I’m running a little low on supplies. But if my grace is anywhere around here—”_

_She flaps a hand. “Piece of cake. Just you sit tight.” She pauses, then, and puts her head on one side, regarding him critically. The quiet wariness behind her eyes fades. “Or don’t. Get yourself a warm bath and a change of clothes.”_

_He snorts, not dignifying that with an answer, and she leaves._

_There is a spell to suit his purpose, it turns out._

_“You’re not going to like this,” Rowena warns him._

_He looks at her through narrowed eyes. “Will it work?”_

_“It’s the Book of the Damned. Or course it’ll work.”_

_He crosses his arms. “Then what’s the problem?”_

_She turns the paper to face him. The spell is copied out in her own flowing hand. She’s smart enough not to share the location of the book._

_To speak with the Creator of this Earth, reads the title. Beneath it, in smaller script,_ Only one who knows human love and human pain may work this spell. __

_“Makes sense, when you think about it,” Rowena muses, examining her plum-purple fingernails. “I’m sure He closed off any loopholes that would let you lot contact him.” She pauses. “The angels, I mean. And his sister--can’t imagine she’d have had anything nice to say. Bet she was mad as bees. Must be why she gave Sister Agnes the visions. Hoping for a bit of human help.”_

_He frowns at the paper. “You say this book’s been around for centuries. If that’s true, then how come none of His precious humans have tried to use it? It isn’t like they’ve been lacking for catastrophes.”_

_“It belonged to the Styne family,” she points out. “Catastrophes meant profit for them. And I don’t imagine they wanted to discuss what they were up to with God Himself.”_

_He shrugs and hands back the paper. “Then we’ll try it. Off you go.”_

_Rowena shakes her head. “It won’t work like that.”_

_“Because you’re a demon now? Then find me another human. They’re not exactly in short supply.”_

_“That won’t work either. Even you can’t take shortcuts with this kind of magic.” She lifts her gaze from her fingernails, looking him in the eyes with some trepidation. “It has to be you. Like this. If we stuff your grace back in now, no face-to-face with Him. Then there’s the ambiguous wording. What’s human love anyway? And how do you know it? Might take some trial and error.”_

_He glowers at her. “Leave me be.”_

_The spell, though, only reiterates what she said. Only the summoner may speak with God. And it’s not as simple as speaking the incantation and then replacing his grace; the wording makes sure of that. It can only be someone who’s lived among humans long enough to suffer and to love, to become entangled in their lives._

_The thought repulses him. But after a few moments’ thought, his instinctive disgust starts to recede. Compared to the span of his existence, it’s the blink of an eye. Might it not be worth it, to finally get an answer? To find peace? Loving a human; that might be impossible. But maybe it would be enough to be loved. Humans are easy enough to manipulate into hatred. How hard can the opposite be?_

_He even has an inkling where he would go._

_Rowena eyes him shrewdly when he calls her back. “So you’ve come to a decision.”_

_“This spell,” he says, slowly. “How does it work?”_

_She smiles. “Come with me.”_

_It’s complex in a way he’s never needed to bother with before. For angels, working magic is a simple enough matter, the threads of Creation and the energies that connect them visible, easy to manipulate. For archangels, it’s simpler still. Humans, with their limited senses, have to rely on endless symbols and incantations, precisely calibrated to avoid error. Without his grace, he’ll have no choice but to do the same._

_The spell needs new components, being designed for human use. He cuts his palm to draw blood, and Rowena traces the necessary sigils up his arms, the magic sinking into his skin with a brief bite of cold. “This will tell you when you’ve fulfilled the criteria,” she says. “That’s when you say the summoning incantation. I’ll spell a box to contain your grace once I find it. That will open at the same time.” She pauses. “That is, if you think a mere demon is up to the task.”_

_Stroking her ego is the way to her loyalty; that’s clear enough. He gives her a smile. “I’ll trust your expertise.”_

_Rowena smiles, flutters her eyelashes. “Then let’s get on with it, shall we?”_


	12. Chapter 12

Sam comes around on the library floor, his head swimming. It takes him a moment to fully realize where he is; that he’s back in his own head and not lost in another of Lucifer’s memories.

The first thing he notices is the quiet. The second is that there’s a pillow under his head.

He must have been out a while, then. Long enough for—somebody to worry about his comfort, anyway. Did Dean get out of bed and find him? Cas? Or was it—

His stomach lurches as the pieces of the vision come together. That box. Lucifer’s grace. 

Sam forces himself to sit upright, stifling a groan as the pulse of a headache makes itself known behind his eyes. Then he starts as he realizes there’s somebody sitting at the desk.

It’s Lucifer. He has his back to Sam, and he isn’t glowing anymore. The lamp on the table is lit, and the spellbox sits open in front of him. But Lucifer’s shoulders are slumped, his head in his hands. Sam’s no expert, but he doesn’t _look_ like an angel that just got its powers back.

Cautiously, Sam gets to his feet. Lucifer lifts his head at the sound and turns to look over his shoulder. His smile is small and hollow. Something unidentifiable twists in Sam’s guts.

At least it isn’t guilt this time. He’s sure of that.

“So,” he says out loud. “What happened?” He nods at the box.

Lucifer’s smile turns into something ugly, just for a second, but it fades again right away. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What do you think?”

“Rowena?” Sam raises an eyebrow. “Kinda surprised you trusted her with that. I mean, you did kill her.” Surely that’s the last thing he should give a crap about, but that makes it the easiest to latch onto, somehow.

Lucifer snorts. “She’s a demon. When she was human she was driven by greed. She wanted position, status. I could have granted her that much more easily than she could have taken it from Crowley herself. She wasn’t supposed to stand on _principle_.” He shakes his head, like he’s still struggling to make sense of the idea.

“She didn’t follow the plan.” Sam lets out a sigh and sinks into the nearest chair, steadying himself on the table. “But I did. That was what I was, right? Part of the plan.”

Lucifer doesn’t look at him. “Does it matter? The plan didn’t work.”

“Goddammit, yes, it matters!” Sam hisses, fighting to keep his voice down. That, at least, startles Lucifer into turning his way. “You show up here, you screw with my head, you tell me that you’ve changed—hell, you had me believing it.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Lucifer tilts his head. “I just showed you that much. I’m not what I was in the Cage. I’m not even what I was when we first met. I don’t want the same things.”

“So you want some showdown with your dad instead of your brother. You still used me to get it.” Sam shakes his head, swallowing his rising nausea. “I _touched_ you. For a minute back there, I thought maybe you—I don’t know, felt something human. But I was just a piece of your plan, like always.”

“Sam.” Lucifer looks him in the eyes, and something sparks faintly behind his hollow expression. “You were never just anything.”

“Really? Because it sure as hell looks that way. You needed human pain, so you pissed me off until I hurt you. You needed human love, so you made nice until I climbed into bed with you. And I was dumb enough to fall for it, for some goddamn reason.”

Lucifer’s hand finds his, then, and he starts. He tries to pull away, but Lucifer holds onto him. 

“Okay,” Lucifer says, with a sigh. “Not completely off the mark. I had reasons for showing up here. But you didn’t exactly follow the script.”

That’s enough to make Sam peer at him in surprise. “Sure as hell feels like I did. Your spell worked, didn’t it?”

“Not like I expected.” Lucifer’s expression softens; he’s looking at Sam like he did earlier, open and wondering, and Sam shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “You Winchesters have always been pretty good at confusing guilt with love. I thought I’d start there. I know exactly how much anger you’ve got in there, Sam, trust me.”

“And you knew exactly how to bring it out.”

Lucifer has the grace not to meet his eyes, something troubled flickering over his face. “That part worked,” he says. “I needed human pain; you provided. But then you were supposed to change your mind. The visions were supposed to make you _get it_. You were supposed to—” He breaks off, goes quiet.

Sam takes a moment to get it. “I was supposed to fall for you?” He can’t keep the incredulity out of his voice.

Lucifer hunches defensively in on himself. “Don’t act like it’s that crazy a suggestion. I know you understand me better than you’d like to admit. I let you into my memories so that you’d see that.”

“So I saw a few things from your point of view. It doesn’t translate into—into what you were looking for. You can’t just force someone to love you. That makes no sense.”

“Humans don’t make sense. Like I said, you’re always confusing love and guilt. Human love isn’t nice, Sam. You know that. It isn’t fun.”

“How would you know?!” Sam says, and then stops short.

Lucifer isn’t looking at him anymore. He’s gripping the side of the box with one hand, knuckles white. After a second, he seems to realize he’s still holding Sam’s hand with the other and he snatches it back, folding it protectively in against his chest. 

“You didn’t follow the script. The spell still worked.” He looks _pissed_ , but Sam doesn’t feel any instinctual prickle of apprehension, looking at the hard set of his jaw. It’s still that human, helpless kind of anger.

“You’re lying,” Sam says, but it comes out sounding weak.

Lucifer holds out his hands, the Enochian fading on his skin. It’s a washed-out blue now, like he’s drawn on himself in Sharpie and then tried to wash it off. “Tell that to the spell.” 

Sam doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know what to do with his anger, or with the way Lucifer is looking at him now, scowling in defeat and looking utterly, utterly lost. Asking himself what he feels about all that doesn’t seem safe. “So,” he manages. “What happens now?”

“I leave.”

He blinks. “What?”

“I have to find Rowena. Get my grace back.” 

Sam blinks. “Even if we let you go,” he says, “how do you know she still has it? Maybe she never found it at all. Plus, if I was her, finding a way to destroy it would be top of my to-do list. She must have realized you were gonna be pissed once you found out she screwed you.”

Lucifer just shrugs. “I have to try.”

Sam stares at him. “What do you even think would happen? Crowley isn’t exactly your biggest fan—and even if there was a chance he’d let you interrogate her, she’s a demon now. You’re human. No offense, but you’re not exactly experienced when it comes to being the least powerful person in the room.”

Lucifer doesn’t argue, but his expression doesn’t change. “The summoning has already started. I had to speak the incantation to open the box. My Father will find me. And I won’t face Him like this.” His voice cracks, finally and he gestures down at himself. 

Sam surprises himself by reaching out, catching hold of Lucifer’s hand. Lucifer gives him a startled look, but he doesn’t pull his hand out of Sam’s grasp.

“Why not?” Sam asks. 

Lucifer looks at him like he’s just started speaking in Ancient Greek. Or some language that angels don’t automatically understand.

Sam takes a deep breath. “Going after Rowena won’t get you anywhere. Why not just—tell him you’re gonna stay here? You want me to believe you’re different? This is how. You could have a life. Try to, I don’t know. Do something good down here.”

There’s a moment where Lucifer just keeps staring at him, apparently dumbfounded. Then he gives a low, ugly laugh, eyes narrowing. “And when I’m done?” he says. “What happens then? Are you gonna plead my case at the gates of Heaven, Sam? Will you teach mercy to angels?” He tries to pull his hand from Sam’s grasp.

Sam holds on. “You don’t _know_ what happens then,” he says, a pleading note creeping into his voice. “That’s the whole point. You have to try anyway. I know it sucks, but that’s just what you do, when you’re human.”

“You’re still talking like being human means anything to me.” Lucifer fixes him with a look. It’s almost disappointed, the way he used to look at Sam years ago, when he was trying to talk him around to jumping on the Apocalypse train. “You’ve been in my memories, Sam. I don’t care about whatever life you think I could have. I don’t care what it means.”

“Then what are you planning to ask your dad about? You wanna know why he brought you back as one of us. It’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?”

Lucifer doesn’t answer that one, just stares mutinously back at him.

Only, maybe Sam already has the answer. 

That previous vision he had. All that peaceful darkness. He wanted to stay there. Or rather, Lucifer did. Sam gets it, though. He remembers Death sitting before a fireplace, promising him this would be the final period on the end of his story, and he gets it too well.

Maybe refusing to show up human is a pride thing. But at the same time—if Lucifer pisses God off at full archangel power, then maybe this time, God decides he’s too dangerous to be allowed to live. Maybe he gets to go back to nothingness after all.

It’s too familiar; too much like understanding. If tonight should have taught him anything, it’s that thinking he understands Lucifer is dangerous. Whatever he claims to feel for Sam, it doesn’t make him trustable. 

But he’s still sitting there in the chair beside Sam, his head drooping over the box, fingertip-tracing the carvings on the side. Right now, he doesn’t look like he wants to leave.

Sam hesitates a moment longer, knuckles white where he’s gripping the edge of the table. Then he finds himself saying the only thing he can think of.

“Your grace,” he says, and Lucifer turns to look at him, head snapping up sharply.

“What about it?”

“What Cas said. About angels leaving grace behind in a vessel. It’s possible there’s still some left—” He swallows. “—in me, right?”

Lucifer inclines his head, curiosity creeping up behind his blank expression. Like Sam is still the one surprising him, after all of this. 

“There’s a way to get it out.”

“I know.” Soft; cautious.

“What if I said you could have it? If you wanted?”

“Sam—”

“I’m not finished.” He closes his eyes and feels his pulse beat behind them. When he opens them, he finds Lucifer watching him carefully. “Because you can. But if you take it, I’ll know that you were lying. What you said earlier—about what made the spell work. I’ll know you were lying.”

“You can’t lie to magic.”

“But you can lie to yourself. And if you’d rather go off on some suicide run than try to do the right thing? Then yeah, that’s what you were doing. Whatever you saw in that vision, that made you think you understand _human love_? It wasn’t me. You just saw what you wanted to see and fell in love with your own reflection.” It comes out all in a rush, like the Hail Mary it is. His fingertips threaten to gouge holes in the tabletop.

He starts a little when Lucifer reaches over and takes his hand. He lifts it gently, thumb stroking Sam’s knuckles. 

“Why?” he asks. “Because you stand for humanity? For choosing life?” His voice is gentler than his words. “Give me a little more credit than that, Sam. Give us both a little more credit.”

Sam drops his eyes. He can’t find the answer to that. He doesn’t know that there is one.

Lucifer strokes his hand again. “If the offer’s real,” he says, very softly. “I’d like to take you up on it.”

There is no triumph in his voice. When Sam looks up at him, his eyes are very tired.


	13. Chapter 13

Sam nods, wordless. For a long moment, it’s all he can do.

Lucifer gets to his feet. The scrape of his chair on the library floor is very loud. 

“Wait,” Sam finds himself saying, then, and he catches Lucifer by his wrist.

Lucifer blinks at him, but sits.

“That last vision. After—” Sam glances away; doesn’t let go. “Earlier. What did you see?”

It’s a moment before Lucifer answers him. He seems to be weighing his answer. Maybe wondering if it’s gonna stop him getting what he wants, Sam thinks, with a twinge of bitterness. It doesn’t last, though, extinguished under the heavy weight that seems to have settled over him.

“The day you let the Darkness out,” Lucifer tells him.

Sam guesses that makes a certain amount of sense. Letting out Amara was what led him back to Lucifer, in the end. 

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Lucifer says, then. He pauses again, eyes distant. “You were ready to die, sure, but that was nothing new. But when everything was telling you Dean was ready to stab you through the heart? Well, that’s pretty much the ultimate rejection. And with that staring you in the face? You did whatever it took, even if did mean burning the world. You finally got it.”

 _That was completely different_ , Sam wants to say. It’s true. Saving Dean without knowing the consequences, and Lucifer killing innocent people because he was pissed that Michael cast him out—they’re completely different things.

Only, Dean has always been the difference between the two of them. Sam knows that. The brother who didn’t give up. 

But for a moment back there, on his knees with Death’s scythe coming toward him, he knew what it felt like to be given up on. It might have been the worst moment of his life, and that’s saying something.

He looks at Lucifer with a flicker of horror. “That’s what made the spell work?” he asks. “ _That’s_ what you think love is? Seeing somebody else feel as bad as you do and being happy about it?”

Lucifer gazes steadily back at him. He still looks tired. “I think love’s horrible,” he says, and gives a too-nonchalant shrug. “I think that’s why you’ll let me go.”

This time, Sam is the one who gets to his feet.

 

\----

 

_The light burns as it is torn out of him. It hurts more even than he imagined, like being rent right down the middle—_

Sam grits his teeth and shakes the memory away. Lucifer’s memory; not his.

He makes himself concentrate on the here-and-now, instead. The bunker’s ceiling above him. The cool of the chair arms under his fingers. The needle in his arm, and the cold burn of grace being sucked from his veins. It’s a pale echo of what happened in his vision, but at least it’s happening to _him_. 

“We’re done.” Lucifer’s voice is quiet. A shade of apology in it, even. 

Sam pulls his arm back in to his body, covering the needle-mark with his hand. Lucifer watches the gesture, face unreadable. Then he turns and raises the glass vial he’s holding to the light. Sam has to shade his eyes to look at it.

Ever since Cas told him about the residual grace thing, he’s pictured the piece of Lucifer left inside him as something corrupt, rotten, threaded through with blood red or demon black. But if it is, Sam’s human eyes can’t see it. It’s the same blue-white as earlier, no different than that of any other angel.

There’s nothing freeing about being rid of it. A long time ago, part of him wondered if extracting it would finally make him feel clean, lift some long-held weight off of his shoulders, loosen the clutching tendrils that have been dragging him toward Hell since he was six months old. He doesn’t feel any different.

He looks away, and Lucifer clasps the vial in both his hands, light seeping out from between his fingers. He’s still watching Sam carefully, a little uncertain. Still looking like a person.

It would be nice if Sam could still believe that meant something.

“Sam,” Lucifer starts to say, and Sam holds up a hand to cut him off.

“Don’t,” he says. “Whatever you’re thinking of saying, just—don’t. Unless it’s ‘I’ve changed my mind.’”

Lucifer sighs. He’s quiet for a long moment, but when he breaks his silence, all he says is, “Close your eyes.”

Sam does as he’s told. He doesn’t know what else to do. 

He’s a little startled when Lucifer presses a kiss to his cheek. It’s soft and chaste, and final. Sam doesn’t open his eyes.

Then there’s the sound of the vial being unscrewed, and blinding light seeps in beneath Sam’s eyelids. He’s vaguely aware of covering them with his hands, of a high thin ringing in his ears. A long moment of silence.

There is a sound of wings.

 

\----

 

An indefinite time later, Sam opens his eyes. He’s alone. There’s an empty glass vial on the trolley beside him, a few drops of blood on the skin of his forearm. Nothing else to show that Lucifer was ever here.

The corridors upstairs are quiet. Dean and Cas haven’t stirred. The thought feels a little absurd.

Sam can’t imagine going back to bed. Instead, he pours himself a glass of water with unsteady hands, and sits at the kitchen table to drink it. 

He lets his head sink into his hands, then, massaging his temples. He can already feel the build-up of a headache, the kind of nagging, low-level throb that hangs around for days.

He’s still sitting there when morning comes, startled out of his daze by the tinny sound of Dean’s alarm coming from down the corridor. A couple minutes later, Dean appears in the kitchen doorway, rubbing blearily at his eyes. It takes him a moment to notice Sam, and when he does, he stops on his way to the coffeemaker and asks, “Dude, who pissed in your Cheerios?”

Sam blinks up at him. He should say something, he guesses. Dean and Cas are gonna notice that Lucifer is AWOL sooner or later. 

All he can manage, though, is “You got any painkillers?”

Dean frowns. “Sure,” he says, switching on the coffeemaker. “Gimme a sec, they’re in my room.”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief at having gotten himself a couple minutes’ reprieve. He can try to figure out what he’s gonna say. A part of him is sick of half-truths; another knows there’s nothing good that comes from telling Dean, _The Devil’s gone, and I let him go._

Of course, that’s when Cas appears in the doorway, holding the empty box.

“Shit.” Dean stares. “You got it open. You been working on this all night, Sammy? That ain’t healthy, man.”

“What was inside?” Cas asks, cutting to the chase like always.

Sam sighs. “Nothing. There wasn’t anything in there.”

“Huh.” Dean moves to peer inside the box, like Sam might’ve somehow missed something. “All that time you spent studying it for nothing? Man, that sucks.”

Cas is still peering down into the box, looking dubious, and Sam just knows he’s about to ask an awkward question. So he steels himself, grips the edge of the table, and says, “I didn’t open it.”

Dean’s head jerks around so fast Sam thinks he might pull a muscle, and now Cas is staring at him instead of at the box.

“If you didn’t open it…” Cas begins, slowly, but Dean doesn’t let him get there in his own time.

“So who did?” he demands. “Because it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Cas, and there’s no way you’d be crazy enough to let Satan near the mysterious warded box. Right, Sammy?” His sarcasm doesn’t carry to the end of his sentence; it takes on a pleading note that makes Sam’s insides twist up.

He can’t bring himself to fight about it, though. All he can muster up is a sigh and, “Dean, you know the answer.”

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” he says. “Okay, he might be a real boy now or whatever, but I thought the plan was we wait and see what he does so we can, you know, stop him. Not, _hey, let’s hand over all the mysterious magical crap we know nothing about_.”

“It was,” Sam agrees, tiredly.

“So did you at least find out what his game is? Because if he offered to help out with this—” Dean nods at the box. “—you better believe there’s something in it for him.”

Sam gives a low, bitter laugh. “Believe me, I know.”

“How did he do it?” Cas interrupts.

“It was a spell. I don’t know all the details.” Yeah, there are definitely some things that are staying out of this version of the story. “The box was supposed to contain Lucifer’s grace. He’d been working with Rowena. She was supposed to find what happened to it after he came back human.” Sam rubs at his forehead, his headache starting to pound in earnest now. “But it wasn’t in there. She screwed him over.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Well hey, I think I’m starting to like her.” He frowns, then. “Still don’t get why he thought it would be a good idea to show up here, though. C’mon. Let’s see what Satan’s got to say for himself.”

“Dean—”

Dean doesn’t seem to hear him, barging past Cas—who steps out of his way without complaint—and heading back in the direction of the bedrooms. He probably deserves some kind of award for managing to stomp in grandpa slippers. “Hey, asshole,” he calls.

“Dean.” Sam raises his voice. 

“What?”

“You won’t get an answer. He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” Dean’s head pops back through the door, and he doesn’t even look pissed, now. More—stunned, like he’s just had a blow to the head. Sam can relate. 

Cas looks puzzled, too. “I would have noticed if anybody opened the doors last night,” he says. “Any break in the bunker’s warding—I’d be able to feel it. Lucifer didn’t just walk out the door.”

“No,” Sam says. “He didn’t.”

“But without his grace…” Cas trails off, frowning, and Sam can see that he’s gonna put it together sometime soon. 

He still doesn’t have an answer for when they figure it out. Not one that doesn’t end with Sam on lockdown in the dungeon and Dean heading off on some foolhardy mission to hunt down Lucifer, and possibly interrupting the smiting of the century if he manages it. Not one that doesn’t rip open parts of Sam that should never be exposed to the light.

So half-truths it is. He holds up his hands. “That spell,” he says. “With the box. It wasn’t just about getting his grace back.”

“Yeah,” Dean interrupts. “Why the hell would he get Rowena to send it here anyway?”

Sam pushes down the mess of his thoughts, of _human pain_ and _human love_. “I don’t know. Maybe he thought this was the only place the other angels wouldn’t find it?” he offers. 

Dean grimaces. “I guess.”

“Sam. What was the spell for?” Cas frowns at the box, like he’s expecting the eclectic mess of carvings to start making sense.

Sam pauses, just a second. “It was supposed to do two things at the same time. It opened the box, but there was another component. A summoning.”

“For who?”

“The only person Lucifer really wanted to talk to, I guess.” Sam raises his eyes, almost involuntary.

Dean peers at him in confusion. Cas gets it first, his face crumpling into something devastated, and Sam feels a pang of honest guilt.

“My father,” Cas murmurs. “My father was here, and I didn’t feel it.”

He looks like he might cry. Sam has to resist the urge to blurt out the truth. “I guess he’s pretty good at hiding,” he offers, instead. Cas just nods, not meeting his eyes.

“And he just, what, whisked Satan away?” Dean cuts in. “Didn’t smite the crap out of him just to be sure?”

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly see much.” That isn’t really a lie. He did have his eyes closed, after all. He sighs. “But I kinda doubt we’ll be seeing Lucifer again.”

“Huh.” Dean stares at him a moment longer. “Kinda thought finally getting rid of the Devil would be more dramatic.” He turns back to the coffee pot.

“I thought it would be more satisfying,” Cas says, quietly.

Sam doesn’t say anything.

 

\----

 

They don’t talk about it much, after that. Sam takes to scanning the news channels, the paranormal sites on the internet, just a little more closely than he normally does. Quietly, though. 

For a few days, nothing happens. No omens, no mysterious lights in the sky, no freak weather or cattle deaths. But then, this isn’t the Apocalypse anymore. Sam doesn’t even really know what he’s looking for. How long will it even take to pull God off of whatever planet, out of whatever dimension he’s been hiding in? Maybe whatever’s gonna happen has already happened. Maybe it’ll take another ten years.

Sometimes, you don’t get closure. Sam knows that.

Still, when Crowley calls asking for their help with a couple troublesome ex-lackeys of Rowena’s, he claims an upset stomach and cries off.

Dean doesn’t look convinced—and okay, Sam hasn’t exactly been acting like Mr. Normal lately. He doesn’t fight about it, though, just mutters, “I knew rabbit food was no good for you,” grabs his duffel, and promises he’ll be “two days, tops. It’s a milk run.” Maybe he figures the bunker’s the best place for Sam right now.

“Yeah, and since when were you Crowley’s milkmaid?” Sam shoots back, more reflex than anything. Honestly, the idea of a couple days’ quiet sounds awesome.

Dean rolls his eyes and heads for the garage, Cas trailing after him. Sam lets out a breath and switches on the 24-hour news, and waits.

If only he knew what he was waiting for.

 

\----

 

It comes the next morning. Sam’s still half-asleep, wincing as he takes his first mouthful of too-strong coffee, because he can never get it just right like Dean does. He works through his list of websites backward, starting with the ones he’s most likely to be able to dismiss as conspiracy ravings first, which is how he ends up starting with _They’re Out There!! UFOs, Ancient Aliens and More!!_

There’s a blurry aerial photograph on the main page, accompanied by a blaring header about _What the government don’t want you to know!!_ A forest, somewhere in Oregon. A perfect circle of felled trees. Blackened earth. A crater at the center, like a full stop.

Sam scans for the date. Last night.

Years of hunting training tell him, _Do your research, check it out, don’t make assumptions_. But something bright and cold sings under his skin, itches at the back of his brain, telling him, _This is it._

 

\----

 

He steals a crappy old truck from the other side of town instead of taking one of the cars from the garage. Being inconspicuous feels better, for this. 

The drive makes Sam’s eyes ache and his knees hurt from sitting squashed up behind the steering wheel too long. He stops only for gas; eats while he drives. Doesn’t stop off at a motel for the night, just carries on, headlights carving a tunnel through the dark.

It’s dawn when he gets there, sky showing pearly and pale through the trees. Nobody seems to be around, which surprises him, considering that last time they checked out a supposed UFO, there was a whole encampment of wannabe Mulders and Scullys onsite. Maybe it’s just a little too early in the morning for the conspiracy nuts to be up and about.

Sam parks up at the side of the road, as close to the spot as it’s possible to get. He pulls up the GPS on his phone and starts to climb out the car, cramped muscles protesting as he stretches.

He’s barely out the door when he feels it.

It’s almost a sound, only it isn’t, a faint buzz behind the silence of the woods and the birdsong and the wind in the trees. It’s other things, too: a spidery blur at the edges of his vision when he turns his head; a needle-sharp prickle on his skin.

It’s confirmation, tightening its grip with every step he takes into the woods. In the end, he doesn’t even need the GPS.

The wet grass soaks Sam’s jeans to the knees, mud squelching under his boots, undergrowth catching at his clothes. Something sharp and corditey on the breeze. He follows the scent; the unearthly vibration.

Vaguely, he wonders if this is some variation on the smiting sickness Dean told him about. He doesn’t feel like he’s going to puke, though. Even if he did, he doesn’t think he could turn back.

The dry crunch of twigs under his boot is what tells Sam he’s found it. The vibration cuts out just as he hears it, like somebody switching a radio off, and he thinks, _eye of the storm_.

The ground isn’t wet here. It’s as if some kind of invisible barrier kicked in and protected it from the rain.

Oh, and the clearing he’s about to step into isn’t a clearing. It’s a ring of fallen trees, their torn-up roots clutching at thin air like drowning hands. Sam can’t help but hold his breath as he inches past them, like they might reach out and grab him and drag him down into the earth. The hair on the back of his neck stands up. Somehow, he suspects it isn’t just the earliness of the hour keeping the alien-hunters away.

There. The crater is up ahead of him, blackened around its edges. It looks like a meteorite landed here. Sam can kind of see where the UFO guys were coming from. His heart beats in his throat as he makes his way toward it. 

It’s quiet. Sam has to duck under a piece of police tape to get to the lip of the crater, but there are no actual cops in evidence, just the tape and faint footprints in the dry earth.

The birds aren’t singing here. 

Sam finds himself holding his breath as he looks into the crater. He thinks he know what he’s expecting. A dead body in the bottom, or at least one of those white police tents they use to cover them up. A set of angel wings charred into the ground.

There’s none of that. Just the bottom of the crater, full of ash. 

Sam steps away. He circles the crater-edge, watching his feet, like he might find some clue on the ground. He doesn’t, so he veers away, heading into the trees on the opposite side of the crater. His footsteps are too loud here; he can hear his own breathing. Being this aware of himself is disconcerting.

He takes slow, deep breaths; forces himself to unclench his fists. 

That’s when he sees it.

A flicker of light up ahead, in among the trees like a will o’ the wisp. Sam’s dealt with those before, and they’re vicious little bastards, but this isn’t one. He knows it instinctively.

The light doesn’t flicker away from him as he approaches. It stays very still, hanging in mid-air maybe a hundred yards ahead of him, glowing pale and faint.

There’s something familiar about it—the iridescence of the light. And when Sam finally gets a clear view of it through the trees, he stops dead, his breath catching in his throat.

He’s seen this before. 

In that convent in Milton—and at Bobby’s place, when Death came back from the Cage to stick him back together. It’s a human soul, or something like one, pale in the light of the afternoon.

Instinctively, Sam finds himself holding out a hand. He checks himself, pulls it back in, but not before he feels the brush of something cool against his fingers. For a moment he just stands there, staring at his hand, then at the ghostly light in front of him.

It hits him, then. One last vision.

There isn’t really much _vision_ to it. Just sound. A voice.

 _You’ve learned nothing, child_ , it says. It makes his head hurt, rich with resonances his ears can’t process, gives him this feeling like a thousand hands scratching at a threshold he can’t see. 

At the same time, it sounds kind of… disappointed. Vaguely, Sam’s aware this isn’t his memory. He still feels like it’s disappointed in _him_. He can’t think what to say to it.

Then, darkness.

He blinks his way back to consciousness and finds he’s still just about standing up, steadying himself on the trunk of the nearest tree. That pale light still shimmers in front of him.

Sam watches, very still, holding his breath. Souls have to go somewhere, right? Up to Heaven or back down to Hell. Which is it gonna be?

Neither of those things happens. The pale ball of light doesn’t rise above his head, or sink down into the earth. It hovers before his eyes a moment longer—then fades, breaks up and dissipates into thin air. No Heavenly choir; no crack of doom. Just more silence.

And that’s it. Is that it?

After everything that’s happened these past few weeks—how Lucifer crawled under his skin and pushed his buttons, and offered him a reflection that wasn’t quite twisted enough, and then told him it was love. After everything Sam’s done. That’s it.

He raises his eyes. It’s morning now. The sky is pale and bright. It gives nothing away.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring at nothing. 

His cell buzzes with a text. It takes him a moment to emerge from his reverie, to register where the sound is coming from and read the message.

It’s from Dean. _Looks like Rowena taught these asshats a thing or two about magic. Get off the can and help us out, will you?_

For maybe half a minute, Sam thinks about explaining. He could tell Dean he came out here to make sure Lucifer was really dead. That’s the kind of thing Dean could accept. It might even be true.

Instead, he stuffs it all down. His own judgement hasn’t exactly been awesome lately, so he asks himself, What Would Dean Do? 

Take all the nauseous memories and the unanswered questions, bury them in the hollow at his core, and pull a rug over the whole thing. That’s what he’d do.

 _On my way_ , Sam types, and shoves his cell back into his jacket.

Driving away, he looks back once in the rear view mirror. All he sees are his own eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me? [LJ](http://anactoria.livejournal.com) | [Tumblr](http://anactorya.tumblr.com)


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